The Catfish
by Miss Dasti
Summary: Hermione spends her days at the Ministry keeping an eye on loose criminals - a tedious task that has her dying of boredom, until it surfaces that Lucius Malfoy may be running a massive Dark market empire, and it falls to her to prove his guilt. And how else to do it, but with a dash of Polyjuice and a hair off Narcissa Malfoy? Really, what could go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

Through the whole sorry ordeal Hermione maintained that none of it was _her _idea in the first place.

Not that it helped, in the end.

The conclusion of the War did not tie up as many loose ends as she originally hoped. So much of her time and energy had been sapped by finishing Voldemort that a messy clean-up hadn't factored much in her vision of the future. Even now, nearly five years later, the Ministry continued to struggle with a high circulation of dark artifacts, loose killers, and—perhaps the most infuriating of all—exonerated criminals that needed watching.

There was simply not enough room in Azkaban for every sordid Voldemort-supporter that hadn't fled following the Final Battle; the ones who had come quietly and caused the least damage had been pardoned. It made Hermione's blood boil to think about, but she was consoled when she learned that, at least, they would all be kept under heavy surveillance.

She was consoled _at first_, anyway.

But then—after climbing up through the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and graduating to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement—the happy duty of criminal surveillance landed in _her _lap, and suddenly it wasn't so much a comfort as an utter nuisance.

Who better to watch the rabble, really, than Hermione-workaholic-Granger? She hadn't stopped drudging a day since she finished her N.E.W.T.'s and followed Harry into the Ministry. Her first job came to her the day after graduation, nearly automatically. Her current position in the DMLE was almost easier to attain and she hadn't even taken a day to settle in. She'd magicked her belongings to her new office early in the morning and had hardly left the place since.

At first she'd been ecstatic, working in wizarding law. _Finally_, after years of slogging through all the bureaucracy surrounding the regulation of magical creatures, she'd be able to tackle a few laws a little closer to her heart: the ones that stifled Muggle-borns, just like herself.

She'd be able to make real change here, do actual good for thousands of suppressed witches and wizards—she could alter the tide of _history_.

But she quickly realized that nobody was particularly interested in revising those old laws. In fact, everyone in the DMLE was currently preoccupied with the quarter of the population that may or may not rise up in a tsunami of Darkness again.

Really, did _nobody _know how to prioritize?

So, rather than bettering the world, Hermione ended up spending her first year in the DMLE keeping tabs on the likes of Jiminy Larson, an ex-Snatcher and an all-around scumbag that managed to just survive his parole before breaking into a pet shop and doing unsavory things to a rabbit. The poor creature made a full recovery but had to have a memory charm performed on it so it could go on living. Hermione made sure he went to Azkaban for the maximum possible sentence. Having watched him for a year, she'd come to really hate his stupid, cock-eyed face and was glad to see him locked away as he should've been from the start. Her other charges were shaped in the same repulsive mold.

As if sitting around monitoring the gross underbelly of the wizarding world wasn't torture enough, things in Hermione's personal life weren't going so brilliantly, either. She'd spent five tenuous months engaged to Ron before she finally panicked and broke it off. They fought too much and too often, and their cohabitation made it abundantly clear that she was expected to be a surrogate mother to him, something she never wanted in a marriage.

The breakup couldn't have been uglier. But eventually Ron surprised her and, after only sixteen months of muttering and angry silence, they had a civil conversation and reestablished a tenuous friendship. She knew Harry and Ginny were relieved, at least, that they were back on speaking terms, but it saddened her that things would never be the same between the four of them.

No more gallivanting about as a happy quartet, no more double dates over lunch or spontaneous trips abroad…

After Ron, there followed a bit of a dry spell—that being the understatement of the century. Sure, there'd been a string of blind dates courtesy of a well-meaning but terribly deluded Molly Weasley (who still treated Hermione like a daughter even though things hadn't worked with her son), but each one had gone to hell. Really, really gone to _hell_.

Hermione couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd eaten as much ice cream or sobbed over as many bad romance films.

One of her potential suitors had, for no apparent reason, shown up in a bright red cape and his drawers on the outside of his pants. Another had asked for a foot-massage right there in their box at the opera. Yet another had tried to convince her he was a star Quidditch player and had rolled in wearing his "professional uniform" to prove it; she might've believed him, except that Ginny _actually _played on the Holyhead Harpies and Hermione had met the whole team just the week before, and there still wasn't a single wizard on it. When she pointed this out, he'd made a grand exit out of the restaurant window, got jammed and had to be removed by the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.

One of the witches called to the scene recognized Hermione, and the next day the story was all over the Ministry.

It was so, so bad.

To cope, Hermione threw herself even more fiercely into her work. She had her nose in her reports first thing in the morning, looking them over while she brushed her teeth and drank her coffee. She broke away only for the occasional outing with Harry and Ginny, or Neville and Hannah, or Luna and Rolf—whichever couple felt like having a third wheel that day. She obsessed over details and had everything done weeks in advance.

She was getting tired.

Not just physically tired, either. No. At first that's all she thought it was—she assumed she needed to exercise more, keep a better watch on her diet. But even after she'd integrated a fanatical workout routine into her schedule, and cut out nearly all unhealthy foods from her life, the tiredness persisted. She started going to bed strictly at 8 o'clock every night, but sometimes she just laid awake, tossing and turning.

So she ran more, ate even healthier. Still no change—in fact the sleepless nights became even more numerous. She started taking herbal supplements to try and coax herself to bed, but nothing helped.

"Maybe you should be focusing on getting a little _less_ sleep, if you know what I mean," Ginny said.

Hermione looked up from the parchment folder she'd been eyeing under the table (her friends forbid her from working over lunch, but sometimes they let it slip if they couldn't actually see her at it). "What do you mean?"

Ginny raised her eyebrows, her hands clasped on her huge belly. This one would be her second; James had been born only a year before, and was now slobbering happily in the highchair at her elbow. "You _know_," she said mischievously. "Maybe you're relying too much on those workouts to tire you out. Maybe you should try something different."

"I _have_ been," Hermione fumed. "I told you, I've been doing those new crunches, the ones where you've got to lay on an incline with the barbells in your hands—"

"Maybe you should try getting a _workout partner_," Ginny said, a little louder, her eyebrows raised so far they nearly disappeared in her flaming hairline. She tilted her head forward, looking intently at Hermione.

It clicked. "Oh my God, Ginny," she huffed, going red to the roots of her frizzy hair. "That's—come on, that's the _last_ thing on my mind right now—"

"Well, maybe it shouldn't be," Ginny said. "I can't tell you how many times a good shag has put me to sleep, even if I'd been working the pitch all day—"

"Jesus Christ, _Ginny!"_ Hermione put her face in her hands and tried to rub the image out of her brain. It was simultaneously awkward and depressing.

Ginny laughed. "I'm only trying to help. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I haven't got time for any of that," Hermione insisted. "I've got a presentation with the Minister coming up and I have to spend all day tomorrow following that sick Jacob Hanson around under the department's rubbishy Invisibility Cloak, and you don't even want to know what I witnessed him doing last week, it'd be enough to put anyone off men for years—"

"All I'm saying," Ginny cut in, talking over her, "is after you've booked Hanson for tossing off in a shopping mall, you should come join Harry, Neville and I at the Cauldron, and we'll sort out a likely candidate for you. We'll get you drunk enough that _someone _will look likely, anyway," she added, snickering. "Oh, come on! Don't look at me like that. It'll be boring being the only sober one again unless you're there and you let me get you plastered. That's really all that's keeping me going anymore, Hermione. Think about that."

"Thanks for your consideration and kind words of comfort, Ginny," Hermione sighed, waving for the check, "but I think I'll pass."

As Ginny shook her head and finally dropped the subject, Hermione couldn't help but feel a familiar sinking in her gut. She didn't know a thing, Ginny—pregnant and glowing and married to the man of her dreams with a perfect toddler and a perfect little home all set up in Godric's Hollow. As far as Hermione was concerned, her own romantic life was well and truly over. There wouldn't ever be that special someone for her, except _books_.

God, she'd been a real fool.

* * *

><p>Hermione arrived at work the next day to a file lying in the center of her anally clean desk. This was surprising—she was always one of the first people in the office, and David Belby, her supervisor, generally didn't arrive earlier than her unless something was up. She glanced at his door and saw the blinds of his office were drawn: a sure sign he was in, and working on something.<p>

Excited for a moment, she hurried across the room and snatched up the heavy file—only to be immediately disappointed. This was the file she'd put together three weeks ago and had assumed was completed. On the front was a sticky that read, "This is to be your top priority now," in Belby's messy scrawl. Sighing, she flipped it open, and was immediately confronted by three black-and-white photographs clipped to the front page of the report: one each of Draco, Narcissa, and Lucius Malfoy.

Damn Belby. Why was he pulling up this garbage now? Hadn't he read the file? Hermione often suspected he just skimmed—this confirmed it. If he'd actually read it, he would've seen that she'd checked, rechecked, and thoroughly triple-checked the Malfoys and found nothing unsavory aside from their personalities. Every property even remotely associated with the Malfoy name had been strip-searched right down to the foundations; every dangerous or Dark artifact had been seized and destroyed.

The Malfoys themselves had all been deprived of wands for nearly a year, and then, after they'd proven themselves harmless during that time, Draco and Narcissa were allowed to purchase replacements. Meanwhile Lucius was forbidden to do magic for another two years after them. When he finally did get a replacement, the Ministry was sure to place powerful monitoring charms on it for several months, to be sure he wasn't reverting. Hermione had searched through his spell history nearly five times and hadn't found anything out of the ordinary.

She scowled at the little moving figures. All the hours she'd wasted compiling this report, and now Belby wanted her to revisit the issue, as if there were anything more to the story. Draco was slouched against the picture's border, looking nearly as exhausted as Hermione felt. Narcissa looked like winter: pale and cold, her hands clasped in her lap, her chin tilted up. Lucius merely stood there, straight-backed and staring.

Hermione had seen these photographs a million times when she'd first started this case; there was hardly anything remarkable about them. She hadn't seen the subjects of the pictures in real life since the Final Battle, yet their faces were permanently etched into her memory. Even after all this time, she still couldn't make sense of Lucius Malfoy's expression. The other two Malfoys looked perfectly normal, but he… She'd thought to herself one morning, when she'd first been drawing up their reports, that he looked dead. Void in the eyes. Like a gutted fish on ice… She'd always thought there was something terrible about his handsome, stoic face. Something frightening… now it was just more apparent.

With a huff, Hermione slammed the folder closed. She really couldn't bear the thought of looking through those old papers again. They were dull in the extreme: the Malfoys had done a disgustingly good job at keeping their noses clean following the war. How did Belby expect her to make this her top priority?

As if on cue, Belby himself came striding into the office, carrying a small cork board dotted with colored tacks and a patchwork quilt of newspaper clippings, sticky notes and yarn. He look disheveled; his wild black hair made Hermione think of Harry.

"A breakthrough," Belby said, propping the board on a chair opposite her desk. In all the years she'd known him, Hermione never knew Belby to waste time on introductions or small talk, not when something big was on his mind. Belby took out his wand and muttered a quick spell; a small, red dot of light, like a laser-pointer, appeared on the board. He used it to circle one of the press clippings. "Remember the Svobodas?"

Hermione had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes. "Yes, Belby. They were a family of thugs and they practically owned the Dark market for generations. They came out in the open during Voldemort's second reign and were taken down after the Final Battle. What's your point?"

"I've been trying to figure out how the Dark market is still functioning as well as it is, considering the Svoboda empire's been down for years," he said, a little breathless. Hermione guessed he hadn't got much sleep last night. "They were the major distributors of Dark objects and materials. They had hundreds of people working under them—but it wasn't very well-organized, and when they were disbanded, there was barely a hiccough in the market." He pointed again at the board, this time indicating a chart, linked by red yarn to a press clipping about the Svoboda trials.

Hermione glanced from her boss to the cork board. "That looks like the artwork of a patient in an asylum," she said. It was too early for this. "I know all about the Svobodas, and I know the Dark market's still going strong without them. What's your _point_, Belby? What has this got to do with the Malfoy case?"

He grinned and went on, pointing again with his laser at the board. "Yes, well, they weren't organized enough to have operated the whole Dark market, like we originally thought, were they?" he said. "So I thought, maybe they were just a _part_ of what was going on. Maybe they were just foot soldiers. And look—they should have been in their prime in 1996. You-Know-Who was back, and illegal trade should've been flourishing. But we don't see that." He pointed again at what looked like a table covered with numbers. "In fact, we see a distinct dropoff in the trade of Dark artifacts, especially illegal potions. It's like a wrench was thrown in the cogs. Business totally fell apart here. If the Svobodas were in charge of it all, why the sudden crash? What happened?"

Hermione paused, her eyebrows furrowed. "So you're saying someone else was behind the Dark market, and was using the Svobodas to distribute, but something happened to them in 1996." She glanced at her boss. "Well, what was it?"

Dear lord, Belby was really relishing this, wasn't he? The man positively danced as he pointed again at the board. "It just so happens that Lucius Malfoy went to prison that year." He used the beam from his wand to circle another press cutting. "And the market didn't perk up again until he broke out. Look—a month out of prison and the market's thriving again. But then it drops off again here"—he pointed—"and that's around the time the inhabitants of Malfoy Manor were confined to the house. Malfoy couldn't get out to do business, and suddenly the market goes wonky again. Coincidence?"

She followed the blue bit of yarn linking a column on the Svobodas to a cutting about Malfoy's incarceration. It was a long moment before she responded. "Correlation does not mean causation," she said matter-of-factly. "It's suspicious, to be sure, but it's not _proof_. We can't get him on any of this."

Belby wasn't fazed at all: in fact he seemed to have anticipated this sort of reaction from her. "That's true, but that's also why we need to focus on the Malfoy family again," he said seriously. "The Dark market is stronger than it ever was—I can't tell you how many erumpent horns we've dug up in the past month, and somehow we're still being flooded with illegal dragon eggs, and that new drug Doxie Dust that all the kids are on now—that's getting completely out of control, and we haven't got a clue about where it's coming from. None of the sellers we catch will give away their source. But there's definitely a _pattern_ to the flux of these Dark materials, Hermione. They're being moved and delivered as if by a well-oiled _business_, not like a load of hooligans are out swapping things randomly in dirty alleyways."

He took a deep breath. "And Malfoy's a business man. He's the head of the most successful business in wizarding Briton. And yes," he said loudly, as Hermione opened her mouth, "we've stripped his apothecaries, both physically and financially, and every last one of them turned up clean, but that's not to say he's incapable of running _another _business on the side. In fact he's the ideal culprit. He's a brilliant accountant; he's financed huge operations and charities"—Hermione winced a little—"so there's no denying he could cover something like this up in the numbers. If anyone could run an underground empire, and still _hide _it, it would be him."

There was a moment of silence, during which Hermione stared at the cork board and Belby stood there, panting a little. Eventually Hermione picked up the Malfoys' file and began rifling through it. "If you're correct on all this," she said, "then where are we supposed to start? I drew up this report, David—if Malfoy's hiding something, he's doing an insanely good job. I haven't found a trace of criminal activity anywhere near him."

Belby picked up his board and muttered another spell; the laser-like beam vanished from the end of his wand. "That's what I need you to figure out," he said.

Then he left the room.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: This is my first story; rating's for later on. I thought I could pull off a one-shot but then it kept going forfuckingever. Probably will end up being only a few chapters long, though. Pretty please leave a review! c:**


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't _believe_ this!" Hermione shouted over the rowdy pub music.

Ginny grinned. "Can't you? I _knew _you'd cave and show up eventually, you work too much, Hermione!"

A bottle cap whizzed over Hermione's head, barely missing the veritable black hole that was her bushy hair. Friday nights were live-band nights at the Leaky Cauldron, and after Tom's retirement, Hannah Longbottom (nee Abbott) had taken it upon herself to liven the place up. Everything was washed out in orange and pink light, and the crowd tonight was much younger than usual. Some were "dancing" in front of the stage, if that's what you wanted to call it; others were draped around the bar or collapsed in booths, trying to communicate over the drums.

Hermione, Ginny, Harry and Neville fell into this last category. Harry and Ginny were clutching hands, Ginny practically sitting in his lap, and Neville kept glancing at the bar, where is wife was serving drinks so fast her arms appeared blurred. It was all terribly depressing and it made Hermione feel lonelier than usual, but after three drinks it seemed to matter a little less. After four, it didn't matter at all.

Now she wanted to vent about work and she didn't give a damn that Ginny hadn't been listening all night. To be fair, Hermione had first tried talking to Harry and Neville, but the both of them were so sloshed by the time she arrived that, even if they _could _hear her, she doubted if they could follow a simple conversation.

"It's so _stupid!"_ Hermione bellowed, taking a huge swallow of sauvignon blanc. Ginny watched the wine vanish with a wistful expression. "We barely even know if the pillock has anything to do with it but Belby's making me follow it up again, and I'm so _sick _of looking at their stupid faces, Ginny—"

"Just ask for reassignment," Ginny said, bored. "You don't have to take on every project he throws at you. Just let him know it's a waste of time and go do something else."

Hermione gave her a look of bleary outrage. "I couldn't do that! They'd all think I was a slacker, how am I supposed to advance if—?"

Ginny gave a rather caustic laugh. "That'll be the day—someone on God's green Earth calling Hermione Granger a _slacker_."

Hermione felt a little stung, and she might've retorted, too, except that Ginny's face was suddenly alight with mischief. "Put the work down for a second," she said. "I think I've found the answer to your sleeping troubles!"

Hermione followed Ginny's gaze over her shoulder. Standing near the bar was a dark-haired man clutching a tumbler of some amber liquid; he was surrounded by a load of friends, all shouting over the music, their conversation punctuated by occasional laughter. He was handsome, definitely—he had nice blue eyes and straight, white teeth. He was dressed well, too. And after only a second of watching him, his eyes suddenly zeroed right in on Hermione's.

Hermione immediately felt sick. "Oh my God, _no!_" she yelled, spinning back around to face Ginny. "That guy would never—come on—are you _serious?"_

Ginny glared at her. "Come on, Hermione, you've got to try!" At that moment, however, she was distracted as Harry spilled a bit of beer on her skirt.

"I could ask Hannah to ask his name," Neville said. He peered at Hermione with uncharacteristic slyness, and he might've pulled off the whole conspiratorial look if he wasn't currently dumping his drink on the table.

Hermione went even redder. "No!" she bellowed. "No, Neville, don't you _dare_—"

But then he was gone, hurrying for the bar in a jagged line, and suddenly Hermione felt weepy. "It's not fair!" she yelled a Harry and Ginny across the table, her voice breaking. "Why can't you—why can't _anyone_ just—first at work, with Belby giving me this impossible assignment, it's so stupid, I don't even care, you know? And now Neville's going to humiliate me by making me flirt with this guy who's _obviously_ prettier than me—I mean, not prettier, more handsome, he's more handsome than I am—"

"Look, Hermione," Harry said, his glasses a little askew, "it's the Chamber of Secrets all over again, isn't it? Malfoy's got a secret and he's probably gloating about it back home—he probably talks about all his dirty business all the time with his son, probably training him up to take over even. Or maybe he talks to his wife or whatever. Why don't you just use Polyjuice Potion and sneak in? You'd probably only have to go once, remember, back in second year it only took us an hour to figure out—"

"—that Malfoy wasn't hiding _anything!"_ Hermione bellowed, finishing his sentence. She felt like crying loudly and holding Crookshanks, except last time she sobbed into his fur he'd passed gas on her. The memory made her even sadder. "All we figured out was Malfoy had kleptomania and there was a vault of Dark objects under _daddy dearest's_ drawing room!" Her eyes widened suddenly. Dark objects. Dark market, secret business… "Oh my _God_, Harry, you're brilliant!"

Harry grinned, tipping his glass sloppily at her. Ginny was glancing from Harry to Hermione, a frown on her face. "What's all this about Polyjuice and Malfoy?" she asked.

Hermione shook her head. "You explain!" she yelled at Harry.

* * *

><p>Hermione left the bar a few hours after midnight. She stumbled a little on her way out; it took her a few minutes to put on her coat, and when she finally got her arms in the right holes, she'd pulled it on backwards. Muttering angrily, she finally gave up and threw it over her arm, stomping off to find a good apparition point.<p>

"Hermione Granger?"

She turned. It was the dark-haired man Ginny had pointed out earlier. Suddenly she remembered Neville shambling off to figure out his name and never returning; Hermione assumed that Hannah had gotten off her shift just then and Neville had completely forgotten the man. They'd probably wandered off to do God _knew_ what in the storeroom.

Now here he was, standing alone with his hands in his pockets, smiling at her.

She stared at him like a deer in the headlights for so long that his smile faltered.

"You _are_ Hermione Granger, aren't you?" he asked, now sounding a little unsure of himself.

Hermione blinked. "Um," she said, "um, yes—yes, that's me. That's my name. Hermione Gramer—I mean, Granger. Granger." Oh _God_ please let it stop—but no, the words kept coming, faster now. "What do you want?" His eyes widened slightly and she tried to backpedal. "No, I don't mean that in a mean way, no, not like 'go away' or anything, I was just—I'm just surprised because I saw you earlier—I mean I wasn't _staring _obviously but it was—you know, you were there and now you're here and it's like, it's amazing, you know, how it's such a small world?"

Her voice trailed off into a squeak. He now looked distinctly uncomfortable, and it was almost a relief when he glanced away and muttered, "Well—okay then. I saw you sitting with Harry Potter and I assumed it was you. It was good finally meeting you; you did a lot to bring down You-Know-Who. I just wanted to express my gratitude for that." He was casually backing away as he spoke, his eyes wandering, as if looking for someone else to perhaps come and save him. "I s'pose I'll see you around."

"Oh," Hermione said, and she wished to God in her inebriated state that she didn't sound so forlorn. "Oh, okay well, it was nice meeting you, mister—?"

But he was already gone.

She stared after him, and then turned on her heel and went hurrying off down the street, already starting to cry.

* * *

><p>She didn't allow herself to think of the slightly mortifying events of the night prior. As soon as she woke up—sticky and hungover on her couch—she drowned out all of her shame by getting to work on Harry's suggestion.<p>

Polyjuice Potion. It would be simple. She could whip up a big batch in her kitchen and nobody would know. Of course, she couldn't use anything she heard while impersonating Draco or Narcissa in court, since the use of Polyjuice to get a confession off Lucius Malfoy would be entrapment—like forcing Veritaserum on him, or using the Imperius Curse. But whatever she heard would give her a place to _start_. All she needed was for him to slip the name of an associate, or an address to a warehouse, _anything _she could later track down and pin on him.

God knew she wanted to see a terrible bigot like Malfoy permanently behind bars, but more than that, bringing down the Dark market could advance her career past all this tedious criminal-watching. She might finally be able to address those laws that desperately needed changing. All she had to do was get some hair or something off Draco or Narcissa, sneak into Malfoy Manor, and spend a little quality time with Mr. Dead-Eyes.

The thrill of taking action, of actually _doing _something, propelled her through the next few weeks of feverish brewing. Belby wasn't pleased with her seeming lack of progress on the Malfoy case, but since she was dutifully churning out reports, showing that she was at least _trying_, he kept his mouth shut. He didn't even interrogate her when she requested an extension on her loan of the department's shitty Invisibility Cloak; it was standard procedure to go out spying every once in awhile, after all. At least this way nobody would be suspicious of her—meddling in the Malfoys' business was her job, after all.

Hermione decided early on to impersonate Narcissa. This was not only because she was a woman and it would automatically be easier, but because the thought of being Draco for a day made her skin crawl with a million tiny spiders. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Narcissa was a ridiculously gorgeous woman, and Hermione was _not at all_ curious to see what life was like when you looked that good all the time. No, that didn't factor into her plans at all. Not in the slightest…

Hermione kept the ratty DMLE cloak on her at all times, venturing away from the Ministry whenever she could to explore the most common wizarding hotspots in the country, her eyes peeled for any familiar blonde heads in the crowd. But the Malfoys had become rather shy creatures after Voldemort's fall, and it wasn't until five weeks following Harry's suggestion that Hermione actually spotted one of them.

Hermione had given up her search for the day and had been buying ice-cream at a stall in Diagon Park—a beautiful patch of land the Ministry had developed off Diagon Alley following the War, to honor those that died fighting Voldemort—when she noticed a pair of expensive boots clicking along the sidewalk ahead of her. The woman wearing them had on a rich purple dress and matching hat, gloves, scarf and large, dark sunglasses. Her hair was completely covered and most of her face was shielded by the glasses, but Hermione had seen her so often in the Ministry file that she recognized her instantly.

Quickly, Hermione ducked behind the ice cream stall and, much to the vendor's confusion, covered herself in the horrendous DMLE cloak, muttering as she did, "Ministry business, there's nothing to see here." The cloak had a few holes in it, so she had to be careful; as she slipped out from behind the stall the vendor stared blankly at the place where she'd vanished, then just shrugged and went on counting the change in his till.

Narcissa Malfoy wasn't in a hurry, it seemed. Hermione followed her at a safe distance as she meandered through the park; she wasn't rushing, but she didn't seem to really be enjoying herself, either. Occasionally she'd glance around, as if worried someone would recognize her. Eventually she stopped in the very center of the park: a large statue of Hogwarts following the Final Battle, cast in dark iron; destroyed and desolate, a memory of what the War had cost.

Narcissa stared at it for a long moment, her hands clasped in front of her (just like in her picture, Hermione noted), then quietly she withdrew a small, white flower from her purse and laid it among the bouquets and candles at the foot of the statue. She drew out a light-colored wand and flicked it; one of the abandoned candles sprang to life. She went on staring at it for a moment; Hermione, standing behind her, couldn't see her expression. Then she sniffed, and seated herself on a bench nearby, pulling a dog-eared book out of her purse and beginning to read. Hermione was alarmed to see Jane Austen's name stamped in fading letters across the spine.

Narcissa looked so… elegant. So refined and delicate, like some sort of _royal_. Her legs were crossed at the ankle, her back straight, turning the frail pages of her book with gentle little flicks of her gloved hands. Hermione felt a twinge of envy, watching her from several meters away. Seriously, how could there not be a single wrinkle in her dress? How did she get her scarf to fold _just so_—or her hat to sit just right? How did anyone go around looking so… _perfect _like that?

It occurred to Hermione, then, that she was supposed to impersonate this woman, and yet she knew absolutely nothing about her—not her habits, not her diction, not even the sorts of things she was interested in (as evidenced by her shock at Narcissa's choice of novel). For a wild moment Hermione panicked a little and almost dropped the whole thing. How in the _hell_ was she supposed to emulate this weird flawless poster-child for femininity well enough to fool Lucius Malfoy—a man who'd been her husband for nearly three decades?

She got a hold of herself. She didn't have to _be _Narcissa—she could just pretend to have a headache, or something. She could say she was having an off day, or perhaps even fake food poisoning or something, and Lucius would shrug off whatever small incongruences he would've otherwise noticed, right? Actually, that was a brilliant plan. Yes, she'd just do that, and everything would go smoothly.

But it couldn't hurt to do a little more field work, surely? Hermione thought hard. Would it matter if Narcissa Malfoy saw her today? Probably not. It was extremely unlikely that Narcissa knew what Hermione was working on at the Ministry; Hermione hadn't been the one to interview Narcissa or her family when it came time to give their testimonies. Hermione hadn't attended the Malfoy's trials, either. So what did it matter?

Steeling herself, Hermione slipped around to the other side of the memorial, made sure nobody was looking, then pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it in her pocket. She paused—trying to straighten her clothes and her hair, suddenly self-conscious—then went ambling back around the memorial, pretending to admire it.

At first Narcissa didn't notice her—but when Hermione plonked down on the bench right beside her, it was hard not to.

Narcissa glanced up quickly from her book; Hermione saw her impossibly blue eyes widen, alarmed, behind the glasses. In a sudden tidal wave of nerves, Hermione found herself vomiting up the words: "Good morning, Mrs. Malfoy! It's a really lovely day, isn't it?" in a voice that was far louder than necessary.

Good lord, why did she have to turn into such a social retard whenever she got nervous? Narcissa stared at her incredulously for several long moments; then her mouth thinned, and she leaned away from Hermione, glancing frostily across the park. "Good _afternoon_, Miss Granger."

Oh, it was afternoon now, wasn't it? Hermione glanced up at the sun—a motion not lost on Narcissa, whose frown deepened as she returned to her book, pulling the brim of her hat down to shield her face.

Hermione found herself reddening. Oh god, what was she supposed to do now? Then she remembered the author of Narcissa's book, and more verbal diarrhea came streaming out of her before she could stop herself: "I see you're reading Jane Austen—she's one of my favorites. Which book is that?"

Narcissa did not look up. She was glaring behind her glasses and her eyes were no longer moving; Hermione wondered if Narcissa was just sitting there waiting for her to leave before she went on reading. Eventually the silence became unbearable, and Narcissa relented: "This particular book is a compilation of a few of her works." Another long silence, then: "Is there anything in particular I may help you with, Miss Granger?"

Hermione swallowed back another torrent, and forced herself to smile. "No, nothing comes to mind. I just came here to see the memorial again; I haven't seen it since its dedication," she said, trying her hardest to sound friendly and conversational. Instead she sounded like a B-rated actress overdoing her lines at her first audition. Frantically—because Narcissa was now looking colder than ever—Hermione pretended to notice the candle flickering at the base of the memorial, and spewed out, "Oh, did you light that?"

The book closed with a smart snap, and Narcissa was on her feet, tucking it away in her handbag and straightening her hat. "I must be going," she said icily. "Goodbye, Miss Granger."

"I—what?" Hermione spluttered, but in a moment Narcissa had turned on the spot and vanished.

Well, that was… terrible. Hermione felt queasy as she looked around, making sure nobody had actually witnessed that debacle of a conversation. Well, at least she'd got close enough to see the brand of Narcissa's dress and the general look of her accessories, including her wand; Hermione was free to buy similar items now when the time came to take the Polyjuice.

And oh, wait a minute—what was this? She leaned over and carefully extracted the single, golden hair caught on a splinter on the bench. She held it up to eye-level and examined it closely. Yes, definitely human hair, and if she remembered correctly, Narcissa did have blonde hair around this length.

Well, all right then. Perhaps this hadn't been a total waste after all.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: Oh lawd is that a plot I smell Jesus?!  
>Reviews persuade Lucius to appear in the next chapter! :D<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

The Polyjuice had been done for a week. A huge cauldron of it was _gloop_ing away in the sink when Hermione came home that night; she ran in, picked up the now-mostly-gray Crookshanks off the ottoman and twirled him around in the center of the room.

"Well, it's all downhill from here, Crooks," she sang, and he purred in response. (Or she hoped to _god _it was a purr, anyway: poor Crooks had developed a few colon issues in his old age and sometimes what sounded like purring was really something far more sinister.) She quickly put him down.

A single hair would only be enough to complete a cupful of the potion. That would buy her about an hour of time in Narcissa's shoes. Hermione planned on sneaking into Malfoy Manor and finding more of Narcissa's hair lying around, to ensure she'd have plenty more to continue impersonating her in the future, if need be. She pulled out a tiny phial from her jacket pocket and set it down on her cooktop; inside, she'd jammed the fragile strand. It would be her golden ticket back into the house of her nightmares.

That made her stop. She'd avoided thinking about what Malfoy Manor represented to her—a stronghold of bigotry, the stage where her worst experiences had played out. She pushed the thoughts away; she wasn't going to be in there long. She'd be okay. It was only for an hour, after all. Hopefully Lucius Malfoy was a real loudmouth and that'd be all the time she needed…

Hermione spent the next few weeks planning her excursion into the Malfoys' lives. It was viciously complicated, and it brought up unpleasant memories of breaking into the Ministry and Gringotts. This time around, though, she didn't have Ron or Harry to help her. Harry was up to his neck in the Auror life, and he was a family man now—he had responsibilities. She received a few encouraging letters from him, and whenever they met up he was entirely supportive, though he seemed to grow tired of talking about it after awhile. He wasn't nearly so invested in any of it, after all.

And the last time she'd seen Ron was last Christmas at the Burrow. They'd gotten along decently but she wasn't about to ring him up now, even though the loneliness weighed on her like an anvil. It was better to be alone, she reasoned, than to lead someone on, and undoubtedly Ron would take her asking for help as an invitation back into her pants. It wouldn't do.

All of this was complicated by how severely limited her information was. There was no library book she could rifle through about the Malfoys' daily lives; she had to figure all that out herself, and they were the least helpful subjects she could imagine. The Malfoys were rarely seen outside of their own properties, all of which were surrounded by high walls or hedges; she couldn't swoop around on a broom without being noticed, either, and if she was caught… well, she didn't want to think about it.

After a few days stalking around under her Invisibility Cloak in one of the larger apothecaries, she had the good fortune of spotting Draco. He came in and left by Floo, took his lunch in his office and seemed to avoid walking past open windows, as if frightened that someone might attack him if they spotted him walking by. God, no wonder she hadn't been able to find the bugger before now. He was paranoid.

With a bit of luck, and loads more tedious waiting and tailing, Hermione was able to figure out his general work routine. All of this was turning out to be duller than she thought possible, but she kept on with it, because it led to more sightings of Narcissa. It was imperative that Hermione learn as much as she could about the woman before approaching Lucius, and the easiest way of spying on her was by sticking to Draco.

In all that time Hermione didn't so much as glimpse Lucius. She pictured him sulking around inside his manor, Scrooge-like, perhaps taking a swim in a vault full of gold—or maybe, if Belby was to be believed, he was up to more dastardly things. Just because Hermione never saw him didn't necessarily mean he wasn't leaving his home: he had access to portkeys and the Floo network, after all, and he could apparate. She couldn't check his Floo or portkey records without a warrant, and it wasn't as if he had the Trace on him.

Where he went—if he was going anywhere—was anyone's guess.

From what she observed, Hermione deduced that Draco was the one running the apothecaries now. It looked like painfully dull work, and it was clear his heart wasn't in it: he was better at wasting copious amounts of time than any of Hermione's coworkers, and that was saying something. In fact he spent the entirety of one day building a large pyramid out of plastic forks in the mailing room, for Christ's sake. But his employees seemed to like him well enough; she didn't catch them muttering about him very often, anyway, and after all, the business wasn't failing so he must've been doing _something _right.

Even if it was just money laundering.

Narcissa continued to look flawless every time Hermione saw her, and that was seriously freaking her out. She tried to take note of the brands Narcissa favored; it seemed everything the woman put on was well out of Hermione's (or any other mortal human's) price range. And that wasn't even the biggest of her issues: how was she supposed to ensure Narcissa was out of the way long enough to interrogate Lucius? Thus far Hermione hadn't managed to listen in on any of Narcissa and Draco's conversations. Honestly, they had to be the most secretive assholes she'd ever seen in her life. She supposed she'd just have to be ready to seize an opportunity whenever it presented itself, and rely on luck to get her through.

And she was not at all ready when opportunity did eventually come knocking.

"Hermione!"

Hermione looked up, squinting like a mole in the sunlight. "Oh, hullo Harry," she said, dropping the Malfoys' file back onto her desk and smiling up at him. She tried to pretend she hadn't been staring at their pictures again, as if hoping one of them might pipe up with the answers to all of her problems. She'd stuck a yellow happy-face sticker over Lucius' head so she didn't have to see him—and no, it _wasn't_ because she secretly, in her blackest heart of hearts, thought he was even remotely attractive (at all), and she could barely even look at him for a moment before something started twisting violently around in her stomach.

No, never, _preposterous_.

"How are you? Do you want some coffee?" Her hands were trembling slightly from the three cups she'd consumed that morning, but she supposed, since it'd been nearly thirty minutes since her last mug, she could do with another.

"No, thank you," Harry said, dropping into one of her cushy office chairs. It wasn't very often he came to visit her at work; something must be up. He look disheveled, as usual, but also distinctly pleased, and for a crazy moment Hermione thought Ginny might've had the baby, and oh God why didn't they _tell _her—but then—"So guess who I saw in the Floo department today?"

Hermione blinked. "Who?"

"Narcissa Malfoy. She was there alone, she had a suitcase, and she was setting up a long-distance Floo to Arles. She just left—and you know those kinds of Floos take a long time. So you can pretty much guarantee she won't be back for a few hours at the least."

They stared at each other a long moment. Hermione experienced a great swoop of terror—oh God was this it? Was it time?

"Are you sure she went to Arles?" she asked. Her voice came out higher than usual; she cleared her throat and tried not to look like she was about to throw up. "Are you sure it wasn't Arlesey or something…?"

Harry nodded. "Definitely Arles. So if I were you, I'd hurry—you might not get another chance for who knows how long."

* * *

><p>It all seemed to be a blur after that. In the amount of time it took to sneeze, Hermione had left the Ministry and was back in her flat, knocking things over in her rush to get everything ready. She ripped into a change of clothes; upended the phial containing Narcissa's hair over a cup of Polyjuice (which immediately hissed and turned into a light, transparent pink); funneled as much unfinished Polyjuice as she could into a milk jug; stuffed it all into a suitcase that she hoped to Merlin looked remotely like Narcissa's; and then, finally, she dumped a mountain of cat food into Crookshanks' bowl, because the poor thing looked so morose.<p>

"It's all right, Crooks," Hermione told him, feverishly rubbing a special sort of temporary varnish on her wand. It lightened the color of the wood, so that hers could pass as a copy of Narcissa's—which, if she remembered correctly, was quite pale. Nifty little concoction, and Hermione had purchased it in one of the Malfoys' apothecaries, too.

She paused. Oh, shoot. She probably should be boycotting the Malfoys' establishments if there was a chance they were involved with the Dark market. She glanced down at her wand again. Oh well. Just once wouldn't hurt much.

This was it. It felt as if she were about to take a practical exam back at school, only she hadn't studied very well for this one. She gathered her too-long dress and her suitcase in one hand, held her bleached wand aloft in the other, and apparated to the wild Wiltshire countryside.

* * *

><p>Hermione hadn't anticipated so much goddamn <em>hiking<em>. Thank god for her exercise regime.

She knew roughly where Malfoy Manor was, but her apparition must've been off, because it took the better part of an hour to spot the property and nearly as long to locate the front gate. Narcissa Malfoy did not wear practical shoes, and Hermione was nearly crippled by the time she arrived.

Massaging her feet, Hermione took a moment to marvel at just how wealthy these little shits were. The size of the front yard alone was _ludicrous_. Beyond the perfectly manicured hedges, she could hear a fountain and perhaps a stream; a funny bird call that might've been peacocks; and—while she was looking around for a safe place to take the Polyjuice—she thought she could hear a dog bark, too.

She found a secluded bit of brush, ducked down, and drew out the bottle containing the light pink Polyjuice. There was nothing else for it—it was now or never. With a last deep breath, and a whispered prayer that the hair had indeed belonged to Narcissa and not a cat or perhaps a golden retriever or any other animal that would turn her face furry, she dumped the whole bottle down her throat.

Christ, it tasted like _champagne_.

She'd experienced the effects of Polyjuice too often before, but that didn't make them any more pleasant. After several minutes of gagging and choking and feeling as if she were melting from the inside out, Hermione became aware of two things: firstly, her clothes now fit properly; and secondly, Narcissa Malfoy had muscle memory when it came to balancing on her ridiculous heels. Really, Hermione could barely feel them on her feet now, which coincidentally no longer hurt.

She stood up, much taller than normal, and—waving her wand—transfigured a nearby leaf into a looking-glass. She had thought this would be exactly like impersonating Bellatrix, but as Hermione stared into the mirror she realized that, unlike her sister, Narcissa did not have resting-bitch-face, and it was something she had to simulate. Hermione could see herself very clearly in the lovely visage staring back at her: the wide-eyed expression it wore was a dead giveaway (though she thought, perhaps a little vainly, that Narcissa looked quite a bit prettier when Hermione had control of her face).

Desperately she tried to emulate the chilly look she'd seen so often on the woman, and by the time she was satisfied nearly ten minutes had passed—ten of her precious sixty minutes, lord.

She ran up to the front gate, hesitated—what if there were wards to detect concealment, like in Gringotts?—then stuck out her arm to touch it. Her hand passed through the iron coils as if they were smoke. No terrifying face appeared in the metalwork, either, and she remembered it doing that last time she was here. Perhaps some of the security measures had been dropped in the five years since the War…?

Steeling herself again, she marched through the gate, and tried not to glance nervously over her shoulder in case somebody was watching her. The spikes of her heels dug into the gravel as she moved up the drive, though surprisingly she hardly stumbled. More of that muscle memory.

As she neared the manor she could see the façade of it more clearly: it really was a gorgeous house, though she admitted so only grudgingly. She wished it were black stone and maroon slats, covered in gargoyles and creeping ivy—but it was a light thing, elegant and airy. Damn them.

As she entered the turnabout the hedges fell away and she had a full view of the front yard. It looked like something out of a gardening catalog: bright and rich. Merlin, she wanted to roll in that grass. A fountain giggled off to her left, and all around it—some in the fruit trees, some in the hedges, others strutting across the lawn—she counted nearly two dozen peafowl, some eye-wateringly colorful, others pale as ghosts.

It was one such white bird, a male, that approached her. Its neck bobbed comically as it walked, zig-zagging slowly one way, then the other, turning its head to and fro but always keeping its beady black eye on her. She stopped to watch it, mesmerized by its movements, and it stopped, too, nearly the same moment.

They stared at each other a second, then the bird flared out its tail and flashed a million golden eyes at her. Oh, Jesus, she thought it was pure white, but either Malfoy had bred gold into its feathers, or magicked them that way. It shook itself, rustling its wings, demanding her attention—as if she could look anywhere else. Suddenly she wanted to laugh. Oh, this was perfect, wasn't it? If there was a Hogwarts House for just Malfoy, _this _ridiculous creature would be the mascot.

What an arrogant _prick_.

But her humor died away when the bird put down its tail and made a noise. It sounded like a car horn, and happened so fast she jumped a little, startled. The bird shook its tail and made the noise again, and then again, loud enough she could feel it in her stomach.

And then it lowered its head and charged.

Before this point in her life, Hermione never considered peacocks to be particularly scary animals. She'd seen them in zoos and once in a transfiguration lesson, but she'd never felt threatened by them. Now, as this huge white monster came barreling at her, beak open, legs flailing absurdly like a chicken's, she thought she'd never seen anything more terrifying in her life. A scream ripped out of her involuntarily and she was running in her impractical heels, up, up the drive away from the demented feathery foghorn, gravel flying in her wake.

How did it come to this? Would she die here? What would her mother say when she found out her little girl was mauled to death by a living lawn ornament? It was closing in—she could hear it blasting its awful call at her, soon it would be upon her, and from somewhere deep inside her Hermione mustered up all of her Gryffindor courage and spun around, wand drawn, bellowing _"__Immobulus__!"_

The bird froze mid-stride, hovering above the ground. Those evil eyes stared at her with a mad sort of hatred, and there was no doubt in her mind that this bird may have devoured her soul had it managed to catch her. It was clearly possessed of the devil and the first thing Hermione was going to do when she got back to the Ministry was report it to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

That was so close. Too close. She thought maybe she should leave, now, before anything worse happened, but as she looked back at the gate she felt her resolve stiffen. No, she'd come too far already, and she wouldn't get another chance like this. She was not going to be stymied by a goddamn _peacock_.

She turned back to the manor, took a few more steps—she was now at the foot of the porch—and locked eyes with the dog.

For a breath, they simply looked at one another. Hermione felt as if she were eleven years old again, gawping up at Fluffy in the third-floor corridor of Hogwarts. Aside from that monster, and perhaps all the times she'd seen Sirius when transformed, this was the biggest dog she'd ever laid eyes on; "wolf" might've been a more appropriate term, since it looked uncannily like one. The black markings on its face that gave it a distinctly murderous expression, and as she watched, the lips pulled back off the fangs, and it began to growl—very quietly at first, but with mounting volume.

She'd been prepped a little by the run-in with the peacock, so this time she recovered from her shock quickly and, before the beast could think about attacking, she'd waved her wand at it and yelled "Immobulus!" again. The dog froze, ears back, and the ice-blue eyes widened threateningly at her as she mounted the steps onto the porch. "Good mutt," she said, scratching it behind the ears. Its growling increased to a low roar.

Did Narcissa have a key? Surely she didn't knock when entering her own home, she must just let herself in, but funnily enough Hermione didn't have a spare key to Malfoy Manor on her person just then. She tried the door; locked. Damn. She could just say she'd lost her key, or forgotten it somewhere, and with that in mind she didn't even hesitate when she reached for the knocker and pounded it firmly, three times.

She felt calmer now, somehow. More relaxed. Her confidence had been bolstered by her recent triumphs over the local fauna. Behind her she could hear the dog growling and the peacock wailing, so she cast a quick silencing charm over her shoulder, in case their behavior drew Malfoy's suspicions.

But it wasn't Malfoy who answered the door. In fact, she thought for a second the door had jumped open on its own, but then a voice said from around her knees, "Oh, Mrs. Malfoy—what a pleasure to see you again—please, do come in!"

Hermione looked down. In the threshold stood a house-elf, smiling in earnest at up at her. He looked a little surprised to see her there, actually—but Hermione didn't allow herself to panic: Narcissa was supposed to have left for France that day, after all.

She tried not to stare too much at him as he led her inside and closed the door; in all her time working for elf rights, defending them in court and interviewing them and recording their testimonials, she'd never once seen one wear _glasses_. But there his were—square rims perched on his little button nose. He wasn't a free elf, though: he wasn't wearing normal clothes, only a pillowcase, although it wasn't a pillowcase like Dobby's had been. It was a black silk thing stitched with gold thread, and embroidered elaborately in the corner was the Malfoy family crest. He looked clean and cheerful, and Hermione was reminded of Kreacher when she, Harry and Ron had lived with him in Grimmauld Place during the War.

It made her wonder.

"You come at a most opportune time, mistress; the solarium is all in bloom," he said, in a weirdly normal, near-human voice, eagerly taking her jacket off her limp shoulders and tossing it into the coatroom, where it hung itself neatly on a cushioned hanger. He had a high-class accent and as she watched he smoothed down the front of his pillowcase, as if nervous about looking presentable. "Goodness, shall I prepare tea? Perhaps bring out your favorite coffee cakes? I know how you"—then he stopped, and Hermione glanced down at him in panic—had he seen something, did he _suspect?_ He was watching her closely, a small frown on his little face, but before she could fashion an escape plan he said quietly, "Or have you merely forgotten something, Mrs. Malfoy? Shall I fetch it for you?"

Hermione stared at him in confusion. "No," she finally said, trying to fix her face back into Narcissa's haughty scowl, "no, erm—I've just come back to speak with Lucius."

The grave way the elf was looking at her made her nerves spike, but then he nodded solemnly and said, "The master is just in his study."

"Ah—thank you," Hermione said, then winced, wondering if Narcissa normally thanked her servants, but the elf only smiled and bowed. She didn't want him to notice her looking around in confusion for the study in question, so she quickly added: "And um—yes, if you would bring up tea, and the cake, that would be perfect, thank you."

As he bowed and disapparated, she realized with a jolt that he'd been using the pronoun "I," something that she'd never heard an elf do before. She made a mental note to find out more about that elf if she could.

But onto more pressing matters. She had _no idea_ where she was, no idea where to find Malfoy, and only a limited amount of time to harass him and get out before she turned back into Hermione, and she didn't want to think of what might happen to her if she was caught. The portraits were all staring at her and she felt suddenly vulnerable, like a little girl lost in a museum.

"Bugger," she muttered under her breath, lifting her skirts and bustling down the hall and into the drawing room. She didn't look around—she didn't want to remember, not now when it was so imperative that she keep her focus—but the first door she took led to a dead end in the form of a sitting room, and the next appeared to be an informal dining area. The third was better; she found herself in a hallway. Door after door, hall after hall, she burrowed deeper into the bowls of the house until she was sure the house-elf was suspicious of her continued absence, or worse, Malfoy was now aware she was around, and might find her bumbling along at any moment.

She needed more time, and for that, she needed more of Narcissa. She stopped looking for Malfoy's study and started trying to find the master bedroom—she'd come across a few bedrooms already, but the dusty white sheets drawn over all the furniture let her know that these were likely guest rooms, and hadn't been used in years. Her search became more frantic as the time began trickling away, but at last, after clambering up yet another staircase nearly at a run and bursting into the first door she found, she discovered a room that couldn't be anything other than Narcissa and Lucius' bedroom.

_Find a vanity_, she thought, and immediately spotted one against the far wall. She sprinted across the room and began yanking open drawers. They were all, to her great surprise, empty, except for the bottommost one on the right. In it, she found—_bingo_—a small hairbrush, thank you God. She held the fine bristles up to her face and spotted a few hairs tangled in them: golden hairs. As quickly as she could, what with her hands trembling, she extracted a few, making sure to examine each one closely for that golden color. It wouldn't help at all if she accidentally Polyjuice'd herself into Lucius: she didn't think he'd take kindly to finding his clone wandering around the house in a dress.

She dropped the hairs into the jug of Polyjuice she'd brought, and to her enormous relief, the potion changed again to that soft clear pink.

She'd just stuffed the hairbrush away in her suitcase and taken a few sizable swallows of the completed Polyjuice when a noise behind her made her spin on the spot, clutching her heart.

"Narcissa?"

And oh god, there he was. Right there, filling up the doorway, looking as sleekly pristine as the real Narcissa always did.

Lucius Malfoy.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: Yeah alright so, he _did _show up, it counts c: Thank you _so _much for your reviews. I really wanted to continue on but this chapter's already way long. Now that I have Lu to play with you can expect things to heat up...  
><strong>


	4. Chapter 4

In person, no part of Lucius Malfoy looked dead.

Just the opposite, actually. The room suddenly seemed much smaller, crowded by his presence. He was in full sweeping wizard's robes and looked at the height of his arrogant magnificence: the black of the cloth made his skin marble, like he was some sort of mannequin, and his frozen expression completed the image. A plait of woven, white-blonde hair hung over his shoulder and down over the lapel of his coat, tied in black.

Hermione felt all the breath _whoosh _out of her lungs and, entirely unbidden, her eyes fixed on his face.

Merlin, that must be what Lucifer looks like. She'd always felt a foreboding whenever she'd been forced into his company, but suddenly all her previous encounters with him seemed insignificant. He'd hardly noticed her before. Now it was like she was staring down a jaguar.

Those cold eyes were so sharp and so entirely focused on her that she almost felt naked, violated. In the minute it took her to absorb the situation she recognized what a terrible mistake she'd made, coming here dressed as Narcissa as if she could _really_ pull it off. If she thought his little black-and-white photograph was too much to look at, how was she supposed to look at the real him—

—especially now that he was far, far too close.

She didn't know how it happened but he was suddenly across the room. He didn't touch her but he was within arm's reach, and he was staring at her so hard that she had no choice but to look down, away, _anywhere_ else, because if she met his eyes then surely he'd know.

That terrible twisting was back in her stomach; she told herself it was fear, and she wasn't entirely wrong.

"Narcissa," he said again, and she could hear the touch of incredulousness in his tone now. His low, purring voice, so very nearby, made every hair on Narcissa Malfoy's body stand up.

Hermione knew instinctually that if she didn't get out of there, _now_, everything—the whole universe—would all go to hell. But when she tried to move she found her legs wouldn't obey her: they appeared to be made of gelatin.

More muscle memory? Yes, let's believe that.

Oh god, oh god, they were just standing there now in total silence. He was looking at her, boring into her, and she still was avoiding his eye. She felt, rather than saw, him glance at her suitcase; she heard a quiet hitch in his breathing.

Oh Jesus, did he _know _it wasn't the same suitcase? Did he know she was wearing a different outfit than this morning?

Finally, _finally_, panic made her speak. "I—" Her voice cracked; she was staring at his polished shoes; she could almost see her (or rather, Narcissa's) terrified face in them. She cleared her throat, and willed herself to look up at him, forcing herself to look at least a quarter as authoritative as Narcissa normally was. He was _so close—_her temperature spiraled up alarmingly; was she sick?—oh god, she could practically feel his breath on her. Her pulse raced. "I've come back."

The reaction she got to those words was anything but what she expected. He took a step back—thank the lord, now she had some space to breathe—and drew himself up, rolling back his shoulders, looking down his nose at her. Was he… glaring? A billion thoughts raced through her head: surely he knew, surely he was going to murder her and hide her in the walls now—but the words that came out of his mouth were the last words on earth she expected to hear.

"So it seems. Why now, after all this time?"

What the fuck. "It hasn't been that long, really," she said quickly. Harry had seen Narcissa in the Floo department just that morning, hadn't he? She went on in the same breath: "I changed my plans and now I'm home. I've—I've got to leave again soon, but I wanted to see you."

Lucius continued to glare at her for another moment, but she detected a change. Something about his demeanor was suddenly different. He glanced again at her suitcase, then deep into her eyes, and she thought maybe he would leave, or perhaps continue to question her—but neither of those things happened.

Instead there occurred the worst possible tragedy in the history of forever. He closed the distance between them, grabbed her, and pulled their bodies flush.

It took all of about three seconds for Hermione to lose her shit. He was upon her so fast, and with such dizzying intensity, that her mind—once her pride and joy—stalled like a rusty engine. One stride of his long legs and he completely consumed her field of vision; he pinned her tight against his chest, she could hear his thrumming heartbeat, his arms were like iron bars around her, the whole of him right up against her, and Jesus were they really _embracing_, how the fuck did this happen? And no _Merlin _now he was nuzzling into her hair, breathing deep, she could feel the heat of it in her scalp, and he was _savoring _her and god was that him pressing his lips to her forehead, was that low rumble _really _coming from his chest or was that thunder?

And that other noise—surely that gasp didn't come from _her? _It was reactive—it was all muscle memory, her body moving into his warmth, her hands clutching at the front of his robes, no, none of _that _was sensible down-to-earth Hermione. She could smell the elusive aroma of him, feel the tickle of his corn-silk hair on her face, and all her blood was reorganizing itself in the most unhelpful configuration and she thought perhaps she might faint, or scream, or both—and die.

Later on, Hermione justified her next action by asserting that she'd only been responding to a threatening situation. It was what anyone would've done. He was clearly deranged and she had to defend herself from his violent—hugging. She had not, after all, anticipated a situation of this intensity during all her careful planning to impersonate his _wife_.

Her repelling charm smacked him right in the middle of his chest, and he was shoved back against the nearest wall with a gut-wrenching _thud_, and the look of total shock on his face was enough to root her to the spot. She nearly dropped her wand.

Oh _Merlin_.

They were staring at each other again, but now everything was different. It was like they were both victims of a sudden bomb-blast, and the chaos had trauma rendered them too dazed to think. But it didn't last, and he recovered first, his shock morphing first into a look of such heart-wrenching hurt and confusion that she immediately wanted to inhale her repellant charm back into her lungs—but then it was gone, wicked away, and now he looked _furious_.

Like perhaps he might kill her.

"No—I mean—I—I just want to talk!" she screamed at him, louder than she actually meant; she felt terrified, confused, she was _aroused_ for Christ's sake, her legs trembling, panting as if she'd run a marathon. He seemed to take all of this in, and his anger seemed to lessen. She noticed a brush-stroke of color in his high cheekbones, and she didn't think it had anything to do with being tossed unceremoniously against his own bedroom wall.

She needed to _leave_.

"Oh," he breathed, and her skin prickled again with goosebumps and the caressing sound of his voice; his hands moved distractedly, straightening his clothes, smoothing over the fine blonde hairs that had come loose and fallen across his face. He squared his shoulders and went one shade pinker in the cheeks, as if embarrassed by his loss of composure. "Well, then." He cleared his throat. "I apologize. I only"—he struggled with himself, clearly grasping for words, but after a moment he gave up and said, "Shall we go to the solarium? Francis has arranged tea. He tipped me off about your arrival—him and Fairway. I heard the ruckus in the yard."

"I—you know I really should be going," Hermione said, her voice warbling everywhere. She tried to keep her eyes on him as she grabbed around for her suitcase, and she gasped and nearly tripped backwards when he darted forward, a hand outstretched.

"Wait!" He stared at her, his lips parted, and quickly retracted his hand; a look of desperation flitted across his face and then it was smoothed away, and suddenly he was cool and polished. "Can we not at least have tea? You've come to talk; we should talk. I apologized for misinterpreting this"—he waved a hand—"your arrival. But we are adults, Narcissa. We can speak to one other."

Hermione felt like a total idiot. What had possessed her to impersonate the man's _wife_? She wanted to run—perhaps out the window, then she'd at least be back outside, where her biggest problems were his pets. But how was she supposed to extract herself from this hell _now_, when he'd penned her in with his cordiality? Any excuse she came up with sounded like just that: an excuse.

She had to try. "I'm sorry, but I really, really should leave. I shouldn't have come."

He was prepared for battle, it seemed. "You've come for a reason," he said, and he was steady, and determined, and profoundly patient; she knew at once that escaping him without first suffering through a sit-down was going to be impossible. "Let's go to the solarium and have tea. At least say hello to Belgium—she's missed you, you know."

Jesus, Hermione would've never pegged him for it, but this man had serious attachment issues. Narcissa had barely left _that day_. Maybe he'd suffered brain damage in Azkaban or perhaps from Voldemort, and didn't keep track of time very well anymore. Hermione felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Narcissa; poor woman had to babysit this mess for years. She must have the patience of a saint.

Or perhaps Narcissa, like so many people who kept dangerous predators encaged in their homes, just looked at him like a pretty trinket and that was enough for her.

It was easier to relent to his arguments, so Hermione finally did. "All right," she said, grabbing up her suitcase, "just—just a cup, but then I've got to leave again."

He looked smoothly impassive as he nodded and turned to lead the way out of the room, but Hermione noticed him glancing at her suitcase with a guarded expression. Perhaps "attachment issues" was putting it too lightly.

He didn't give her time to second-guess; in a moment he was at the threshold. As Hermione hurried after him, she thought ruefully that maybe the most dangerous thing about impersonating Narcissa Malfoy wasn't the risk of getting caught.

Maybe it was playing her off well enough that Lucius was actually fooled.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: I actually split this chapter; I'm going to try and update more slowly now, since I think people might be put off by my bombarding them with all these chapters all at once. I'm partially convinced I've doomed this story to be read by only a few people—oh well!  
>Thank you once again to my reviewers, and <em>please please <em>****review again, I love to hear your thoughts!**


	5. Chapter 5

Lucius Malfoy led Hermione Granger through his home, and it was fucking bizarre.

She was only too eager to follow him. It meant she got to walk behind him and escape those flaying gray eyes—and she could look around now, too. She did so mainly out of habit: she'd always been a curious creature and Malfoy Manor was spitefully fascinating.

Really, she wished it were ugly or gaudy, because it was likely everything had been paid for with blood-money, and awful things had happened in these rooms. She tried to remind herself of that as she drank in all the elegant décor, from the tapestries to the rushes to the heavy tasseled curtains; everything matched, everything looked so damn _nice_, and the _feng shui _flowed from one room to the next as if it were all notes in a well-rehearsed composition. Nothing crowded, nothing too widely spaced—all of his possessions just fell together in ritzy harmony. How the hell were you supposed to live in a place that was so…

Perfect?

She felt a sudden rush of anger and thought about stabbing him in the back, because it wasn't fair, was it, that he got to lead this beautiful life and he was a terrible person? It didn't seem so far-fetched that he was running the Dark market, not now that she was being drowned in his pretentiousness. All she had to do was play her cards right, and she could be out of here with incriminating evidence in less than an hour.

She needed to keep it together.

He took a sudden left turn and strode through a pair of French doors framed in gauzy white curtains; she followed him, her eyes still fixed on a point on his back—right there beside that poncey braid—where she thought she might slip a knife, but she was then immediately distracted because now it seemed she was outdoors again. Only she wasn't. With a jolt she realized this must be the solarium.

"Thank you, Francis," she heard Lucius saying, but she wasn't paying any attention; rather, she was gawping at the brightly-colored array of plants lined up on racks, hanging from hooks on the domed glass ceiling and sitting in pots along the transparent walls. He must've had every beautiful flower in existence blooming here, most of them out of season, and most of them clearly altered by magic. She wanted to go around and touch everything but she realized her awe would seem suspicious; after all, she _was _supposed to be living here.

She composed her face again and pretended to glace aloofly outside, but then she saw—oh lord—the demon-peacock from earlier, strutting along the northern wall, its black eyes fixed on her. It raised its tail and flashed its golden eyes at them, tapping insistently at the glass, glowering at Hermione, but Lucius had his back on it, thank Merlin.

"I added a few specimens," he said, pulling out a chair for her with one hand, waving around at the lush assortment of green with the other. "I've finally persuaded that damn gypsum weed to bloom. It didn't take to my _Purtinctura_ charm the first few seasons I tried; the leaves also turned purple, and inevitably wilted. Something to do with the composition of chlorophyll, or so says Fergus. Apparently most plants _need _to be green."

All right, so the Malfoys didn't communicate that often, if whatever the hell he was talking about was a multi-seasonal project and he was just now filling her in. Maybe Narcissa wasn't very interested in Lucius' pastimes—and that would be understandable, if what he did for a living was enough of a handful already. Awkwardly Hermione took the seat he proffered, and as he pushed her in his hand brushed along her shoulder. She flinched at the touch.

How did one casually broach the subject of a multimillion galleon organization in the illegal trade of Dark materials? Hermione would know how to—but the Hermione-Narcissa hybrid was at a loss.

Lucius took a seat across from her, and in a flash the house-elf was there, pouring tea and doling out food. Lucius kept his eyes on Hermione, but it was hard for Hermione not to stare at the elf. She felt an indignant prickle and the words _slave labor_ blinked across her mind when Francis (which she assumed was his name) laid a pastry in front of her and bowed away discreetly, but she couldn't do anything about that now: she was here on a mission.

"Thank you, Francis," Lucius said, and this time Hermione heard him; she was shocked by his politeness. It was forced, it had to be fake, but Franics smiled in the sort of casual manner that would suggest he was often spoken to like this. Well, well, it seemed Lucius Malfoy had learned his lesson about house-elves… "If you would, please fetch Belgium here. Narcissa is undoubtedly eager to see her."

Francis bowed and snapped into nothing, but Hermione didn't get a chance to process the exchange: Lucius was talking again, and his voice inherently demanded her attention.

"How is Draco?"

Hermione blinked. "Fine," she said automatically, a little bewildered. She cleared her throat and allowed a little sarcasm into her voice. "He still finds the management of the Diagon branch quite scintillating." She hesitated—then risked, "He still has an aversion to walking past open windows, though."

Lucius was listening closely; eventually he gave her a rueful smile. "Still doing that, then, is he?" he said tiredly. "I had hoped he'd work through it."

Hermione was confused. Didn't Draco live here too? Did these people seriously lose each other in this huge-ass house? Maybe it was just so big that they had to arrange meetings in order to see one another. The thought nearly made her laugh aloud. What a bizarre life.

She'd just begun to wonder if she should actually eat something when there was a gentle clicking of claws on tile and she glanced over and, once again, found herself eye-to-eye with the dog.

"Belgium," Lucius said, and somewhere amid the tidal wave of fear that the dog's presence evoked Hermione was a little startled by the warm fondness in his voice. The dog's eyes pried themselves off of Hermione for a moment, refocusing on Lucius, and briefly the tail wagged, and the eyes squinted, and the dog licked the air in Lucius' direction, obviously happy to see him.

But almost immediately it snapped back into kill-mode, zeroing in on Hermione like a sniper. She had about a millisecond, she knew, before the damn thing outed her—so she slipped her wand down her sleeve and thought with all of her might, _Confundo!_

The growling never started.

The dog looked from Hermione, to Lucius, then back again—and she seemed to decide they were the same person. So she licked the air in Hermione's direction, just as she had with Lucius, and wiggled her butt in a happy, entirely deceived greeting.

"Belgium," Lucius repeated, and the barest evidence of relief underlined his tone; Hermione looked quickly at him. He was watching the beast, glancing from her to Hermione; the smallest of satisfied smiles curled his lips.

Perhaps he'd expected something else to happen. Perhaps Belgium was trained to spot danger or deception—like a sniffer dog at an airport.

The thought made Hermione cold. She needed to be more careful. As Lucius was preoccupied, Hermione pointed her wand under the table at the north wall and thought _Confundo! _again. She saw Fairway the Peacock stagger around drunkenly in her peripherals and had to inhale the insane urge to laugh. In a moment, thank god, he'd shambled off.

"I've found she likes milk," Lucius said, gesturing at Belgium. "Bloody cat of a dog." Lucius beckoned, and thank god the dog hadn't lost its sense of balance, as animals often did when Confounded; Belgium padded around to Lucius' side of the table and climbed right up into the chair adjacent his. Lucius slid the saucer out from under his teacup and poured a bit of cream into it, setting it down in front of the dog, who finally looked away from Hermione to lap daintily at the offering. Lucius massaged the scruff of her neck.

"She's terribly spoilt, I confess," he said ruefully. "I worried about her getting on with the peafowl, but actually they work quite well together." In that moment, he glanced outside, scanning the walls of the greenhouse; his eyes passed over the place where Fairway had been moments before, and seemed further pleased that nothing was there. Hermione felt a wave of perspiration break out along her back.

_So close._

The silence that settled between them was stiflingly uncomfortable, punctuated only by Belgium's quiet lapping. Lucius seemed content to just stare at Hermione like a hungry animal, so Hermione decided to take the initiative this time. "How are you?" she asked. She tried not to wince at how awkward she sounded.

He either didn't notice or didn't care; at her question, his eyes finally drifted away from her, focusing on his tea. "I exist," he said, his tone clipped. "It has been—well, things have settled into their own patterns, as they always do with time. But I cannot say I have been… enjoying myself."

"Oh really?" Hermione swallowed and tried not to rattle her teacup too much. "Why would that be?"

His eyes snapped up in a sudden glare and she recoiled, but then he looked back down again, and his tone was just a hair sharper than before. "I'm sure you did not come to exchange pleasantries with me. What may I help you with, Narcissa? Because to be honest, I never expected to see you in my home again." He peered at her over the rim of his teacup, as if in challenge. A glowing strand of hair had escaped his plait again, cutting across the angled lines of his face, like the edge of a blade.

She stared at him, nonplussed. "Wha—?" and then, with a realization so profound it knocked the wind right out of her, she _knew_.

Christ almighty, she was so stupid. Everything—the house-elf's reaction to seeing her at the door, the empty vanity, all of Lucius' crazy behavior—suddenly it all made _total_ _fucking sense._

Narcissa and Lucius were separated.

And they must have been for some time. How long, Hermione could only guess, but judging by the ardor with which Lucius pounced on her in the bedroom, and the obsessed way he was staring at her now, it must have been awhile—months—perhaps even years since the two had been together in this house.

She actually choked on her tea.

Oh Merlin, she was a real fucking moron, wasn't she? What in the hell was she doing here, meddling around in this domestic mess? She choked harder when she realized that Draco must also be out of contact with Lucius, if Lucius was asking _her_ about him—oh god, she needed to leave, _now_, she couldn't be involved in this clusterfuck—

He was staring at her, looking a little concerned at her coughing fit, his eyes darting between both of hers, and he seemed to realize she was about to go springing out of there like a deer—fuck, she was about to go crashing through the glass and over the hedges, Jesus—but he reached across the table and seized her hand.

"Narcissa," he said, in a crooning tone that sent another chill rushing down Hermione's spine, "forgive me my impertinence. I'm just so _confused_. I never—I had just begun to accept—" He inhaled; his jaw clenched. "I have never asked anything of you, aside from your patience. And when you granted me that, we were _happy_, for god's sake, you must not have forgotten that? And now I can see you've changed, I can see it in everything you do—you're so very different, both you and Draco are, last I saw him I barely recognized him too. And I understand. You must also see that I'm different as well—too much has happened for me not to be."

Then his voice took on a flavor of such vulnerability that Hermione wanted to touch him; her hand closed reflexively on his before she caught herself and tried to pull away again. He held fast. "We have been apart five years. I never wanted it, you know this, but I respected your wishes as I have always done. Five years—and those were vital years of transformation for the both of us. Perhaps we shouldn't turn away an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves." He slid his fingers up her arm, drawing a circle at her jumping pulse-point, tickling the sensitive skin along the inside of her wrist. "Perhaps we might yet undo what has been done."

This was everything Hermione never, ever wanted to hear. It felt like she was eavesdropping on something horribly indecent. As he spoke he looked at her with such raw need that Hermione felt her stomach twist itself into complex fractals; no one had _ever_ looked at her like that, not even Ron at the height of their "love." Hermione thought briefly about Obliviating Lucius and bolting (and perhaps Obliviating herself, too, because she didn't think she could live with the memory of this—and maybe even the dog, for good measure), but something stopped her from reaching for her wand.

This man was evil. It was hard to think that, with him caressing her like he was in this beautiful, brightly lit space. She knew he was evil—his behavior in the past attested to it. He was capable of torturing and killing and god knew what else he must've done in the service of Voldemort; he'd tortured those poor Muggles at the World Cup, he'd run down and terrorized a load of teenagers—Hermione included—in the Department of Mysteries. He'd given Ginny Weasely the diary that nearly killed her and several other children; once again Hermione had been on the list of those affected. He was _evil_.

And yet here he was, sitting in a room full of flowers, surrounded by all the comforts of life, so wrapped up in himself, in his own _entitlement_, with nothing to worry him aside from a little domestic unrest: the one imperfection on his otherwise pristine landscape. As Hermione was sitting there, thinking this, the teapot moved, pouring a little more tea into Lucius' cup, and she knew Francis was somewhere among the pottery magicking it with a twirl of his fingers. _Slave labor_. It sent a bolt of angry energy ricocheting through her, and every justice-hungry cell in Hermione's (or rather, Narcissa's) body pulsed with righteous fury.

He was evil, but society had failed to dole out just desserts.

He _deserved_ what she was now going to do to him.

With as much careful control as she could muster, Hermione affixed what she hoped was a small, encouraged smile to Narcissa Malfoy's face. "I do think we're different now," she said quietly, doing her best to mimic Narcissa's eloquence. "I know I'm very different from the woman I was—so much so that even Draco has trouble interacting with me some days." Fuck that lazy bugger, she'd take him down too if she found out he was also involved with the Dark market, him and his stupid fork pyramid. "I would like to reacquaint myself… but I think we should be cautious. It wouldn't benefit either of us to… slide back into old habits."

He frowned a little, but nodded. "Very well."

"I think we should be… slow, about this," she went on. "We should assume we don't know anything about the other, which is nearly true"—wasn't it just?—"and proceed from there. It sounds foolish, I know, but truly, things are so very different, Lucius. I believe it's the best chance we've got at moving forward."

His name tasted strange on her tongue, but the look he gave her was even stranger: like a mix between defiance and hope. Apparently he didn't like to be told he couldn't have what he wanted right away, the spoilt brat, but he wanted this badly enough that he was willing to comply with her. She tried not to feel guilty—_He's an evil old bastard_—as she reached for her tea and took a sip, soothing her throat, which was still raw from choking earlier. He did the same, and the silence between them was no longer so uncomfortable.

"I suppose it would be all right for me to ask where you are living?"

Hermione—who had been watching Belgium sneak sugar-lumps from the bowl and praying that her Confundus Charm would hold until she escaped—glanced back at Lucius. She wondered just what he might've done to Narcissa to drive her to hide her address from him, and the possibilities made her gut clench in fear, but she maintained her composure; her snap decision to destroy him had her acclimatizing to the game already.

"I think now may be too soon," she said, "but perhaps we could plan to meet again this weekend?"

He was at first impassive, undoubtedly hiding his disappointment, but when she mentioned making plans to see him again his eyes darted up, minnow-like, giving her a look that sent shivers racing over every inch of her skin.

Oh, she was terrible, she really was the worst person on the planet, and later she would wallow in her shame, but right then, she acknowledged that _yes_, he was devastating to look at. He wasn't even attractive in the same way that boy at the bar had been—no; Lucius _lived _attraction. It wasn't something Hermione merely noticed about him, it was something he excelled at, something he'd turned into _weapon_. And when he looked at her like that, with an eyebrow arched and that subtle, incredibly seductive smile on his mouth, her gut clenched again, and she couldn't fool herself that it was fear or any ridiculous muscle memory phenomenon.

Fuck it all, she missed being wanted. She _liked_ being wanted. Even if it was by him.

Or perhaps _because_ it was by him...

"What did you have in mind?" he said, and yes, he was playing up the natural purr in his voice. At some point he must've leaned forward, too, because he was nearer now, a breath away, and Hermione found herself glancing at his lips—dusky pink and perfectly shaped. Were Satan's lips supposed to look so soft?

She could feel word-vomit bubbling up in Narcissa's throat, terrible and inexorable, but before she could start assaulting him with it, a distraction appeared in the form of Francis. The little elf bowed and rushed over to Lucius, leaning in for what was clearly a private word.

Hermione still caught what he said.

"Master Malfoy, I hate to intrude, but you've asked to be reminded five minutes before your appointment."

Lucius looked annoyed, but Hermione was astonished when he didn't vent his spleen on the elf; he merely gave a curt nod and said, "We shall be done here soon. Please show my guest into the drawing room with my apologies if he arrives early."

Well now, wasn't this interesting. A guest? What guest? Perhaps she should stick around and have a look-see at this _guest_…

Hermione was just gathering breath to fire off a few questions when Lucius turned back to her and gave her a predatory smile. His words, when they came, were positively growled: "Now, where were we?"

And that pretty much eroded any silly ideas she might've had about sticking around longer than humanly necessary. He looked so dangerous that Hermione felt a particular clench _not _in her gut that she hadn't experienced in too long. It scared her a little. She decided to put that one down to muscle memory, and then blushed when she realized exactly what she was thinking.

"I may have to owl you," she said, clutching her suitcase so hard under the table her knuckles cracked. _Stop shaking_, she thought. _Don't let him see you shake_. "I have an appointment as well, Lucius, I really should be going. We shall finish this on the weekend, I promise."

He nodded, though it was a grudging gesture, and stood up. Hermione made to stand, too, but Lucius was suddenly around the table, gently pulling her chair out and offering her his hand. "Can I expect your owl tomorrow?" he asked, and he sounded entirely unconcerned, but the fact that he'd asked in the first place betrayed his nervousness. Belgium had gotten up and come around the table; she sniffed at Hermione's skirts, and up-close Hermione could just see the slight befuddlement in the dog's expression.

She looked up into Lucius' cold, gray eyes, but they didn't seem remotely cold anymore. In them, she saw a thousand and one things—a thousand and one things she never wanted to see in the likes of Lucius Malfoy.

What had she gotten herself into?

Taking a deep breath, she reached out, and grabbed his hand—the first she'd ever willingly touched him. She felt as if she were making a pact, sealing her own fate, and his.

"Yes," she said, "tomorrow."

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN****: Dun dun duuuuun! This actually took me awhile to finish; it was tricky to write and I had to cut out a lot of my own repetitive drooling over Lucius. More time for that later c; Please drop me a line—it's always so inspiring!  
><strong>


	6. Chapter 6

"God, Hermione, what the hell happened to you? You look like an assault victim!"

"Thanks, Ginny."

"No, seriously, what's going on? And why are you reading _How to Persuade Dogs That You Really Are Their Best Friend And Not A Lamb Chop_?"

Hermione nearly laughed—or burst into tears, she wasn't sure. She tucked her book away (a recent purchase) and turned to Harry.

"I ordered the appetizer already, sorry, but you'll really love the tapenade here. I recommend the linguine with the scallops and pancetta, it's so good, and if you request it they'll make it with the quinoa-based noodles, which sounds unusual but—"

"Hermione, I don't even know what that is—"

"And don't change the subject," Ginny chimed in, giving Hermione a stern, Molly-Weasleyish look. She and Harry had only barely settled into their seats, and Ginny was currently occupied with shoving James into his high-chair, a task that did not distract her at all from her ultimate goal: grilling Hermione. "Are you still having trouble sleeping?"

Oh, Hermione _definitely _wanted to cry. "Not at all," she lied, trying not to think about earlier, when she'd perched on her windowsill and cried at the glorious sunrise.

Ginny appraised her. "You haven't given any more thought to that _workout_ I suggested before, have you?" she asked, in a would-be casual voice. Hermione went scarlet and glanced quickly at Harry, expecting to see him looking embarrassed, but he was too busy eyeing the wine list to notice anything. Ginny, meanwhile, had her eyes screwed into Hermione, that devil's smile playing at her mouth.

This conversation needed some redirection, because the truthful answer was _yes_, she had given it more thought—but she somehow didn't think Ginny would approve of the rather dangerous line of thinking Hermione had been perusing. "How's the baby, Ginny? You're nearly there now, have you decided whether or not you wanted to try the home-birth this time? Molly seemed all for it."

Ginny clicked her tongue and picked up her menu. "Fine, Hermione, keep your secrets," she sighed, "but I'm here when you want to talk."

Talk? Hermione wanted to yell at her. How could she ever talk to Ginny about this horrendous mess she'd gotten herself into? Never mind she was breaking the law for her job and her own personal vendetta—no, Ginny might've gotten behind that. She might've even offered some positive reinforcement if she knew about Hermione's successful excursion into Malfoy's life.

What she _wouldn't_ reinforce were Hermione's tenacious thoughts of Lucius Malfoy pressing her up against his body, or that subtle aroma of him that seemed to linger persistently in her nose, or—god help her—the silk of his fine hair on her skin… sweet Merlin, she wanted to run her fingers through those forbidden locks now that she'd found out just how deliciously soft they were…

No. Somehow, Hermione didn't think Ginny would approve of that.

She started back on the little self-preserving mantra she'd developed around 4 o'clock that morning. _Get a hold of yourself. He's wretched. He's a murderous lying devil and just because he might be slightly not-ugly does not mean I should go entertaining inappropriate thoughts about him. Also, he's old. Old, old old. Dirty old man._

She prized her mind back off Malfoy and tried to soothe herself with a little lemonade, but unfortunately it seemed she wouldn't be avoiding the subject today.

"So Hermione, did you go anywhere interesting yesterday?" Harry asked pointedly as the appetizer arrived.

She thought about lying. She _should_ have, considering Ginny was sitting there confusedly waiting for a full explanation, but Hermione simply didn't have the energy for it. She was too exhausted from all the lying to herself last night, over and over, pretending that it _wasn't _the memory of Malfoy—or its attendant sensations—keeping her awake.

So much for the muscle memory theory. The Polyjuice had wore off hours ago; the desire hadn't.

"Actually, yes," Hermione said, taking another sip of lemonade. "I went yesterday."

Harry perked up, and Ginny shot the both of them quizzical looks. "You went to the Malfoys'?" Harry asked, and he had the good sense to keep his voice down.

"Yes," Hermione said, ignoring Ginny's gasp of understanding. "But I didn't learn anything… except that Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy are _fucking separated_ and he was completely shocked to find her wandering around his house. That, and his house-elf wears glasses."

Harry choked on his water; Ginny gasped. "Oh my god, are you serious?"

"Yes," Hermione said, with a small twisted smile, "his name is Francis and I really want to ask him which optometrist he goes to, because that doctor should be awarded by the Ministry for his or her services to elvenkind. They're still so underprivileged when it comes to medical care."

"Hermione," Ginny said, unimpressed with her sarcasm, "did Malfoy catch you out?"

"No," Hermione sighed. "He just sort of… shrugged it off and gave me tea. Unfortunately his dealings in the underground market didn't come up organically. I left as soon as I could."

She flash-backed to Lucius walking her to the door, his arm twined with hers; she recalled the hard flex of his muscle under the dark fabric, and the bewitched dog trotting alongside them, sedate for the most part, although more than once Hermione felt a cold nose on her ankle and was reminded of just how much danger she was in. Francis had been waiting at the front door with her coat; when he didn't think they were looking, the elf gave the pair of them a darting, searching look that was nearly—hopeful? Worried? Hermione couldn't tell.

Lucius hadn't tried to kiss her or anything, he'd merely stood back with his arms clasped behind him, smiling once, quickly, as he said goodbye, which did not leave Hermione feeling at all disappointed, and frankly she didn't care for thinking about the issue, thank you. At least Fairway had been off somewhere doing whatever it was Confounded demonic birds did, and she didn't have to curse him again.

Harry looked sympathetic. "Well, there's still Draco," he said. "Maybe you could try impersonating him instead? It'd probably be easier since you've had to keep tabs on him more than Narcissa."

"No," Hermione groaned, putting her face in her hands, "I found out Lucius and Draco aren't speaking, either. I guess the War put too much strain on Draco's filial affections."

The four of them sat there, Ginny and Harry thwarted, Hermione tormented, James covered in whipped butter, having gotten into the breadbasket while the adults were speaking.

There was no thought in Hermione's head about letting them in on her plans to see Lucius again on Saturday. Although she told herself it was for a good reason—the Dark market needed dealing with, and anyway, it didn't have to be permanent, she could simply vanish when she had her information—she knew going back again was taking things a step too far, outside of the realm of just finding information for work. She didn't want them thinking she'd gone mad.

She already knew that, after all.

But like a crack addict to coke, she knew without a doubt she'd go back for another hit—it was too much of a temptation now, being lavished with the terrifying attentions of a man she found so desperately attractive, all of her senses heightened by the danger of the situation; it was a rush, a thrill, so wildly different from the unending tedium that had become her life. She had hardly ever felt the sort of sexual frustration he'd managed to instill in her without even properly touching her; it was enough that she was afraid to even look at him again.

So inevitably, she would.

_No, no, no, Hermione, he's old, for Christ's sake, and you're afraid because he'll drag you off and murder you if he catches you—!_

"I guess you'll have to find out some other way," Ginny said, cringing. "Never mind, though. It was a huge risk impersonating Narcissa anyway. Like, my god, what if Lucius Malfoy tried to _touch_ you with his slimy hands?" She pulled a face. "That's so repulsive. He's like an evil stork."

Harry nodded. "It's probably better," he said. "That man's crazy, you don't know what sort of sick things he gets up to in his spare time."

_Growing flowers_, Hermione thought. But she said, "Yes," and stuffed her face with tapenade.

* * *

><p>Hermione had dutifully owled Lucius the day following their encounter. She'd written as little as possible, essentially just telling him what time he could expect her at the manor on Saturday, and she used a typewriter to hammer it out. She also neglected to sign it in case he noticed a forgery, and was careful to keep a low profile in Eeylops as she sent it off.<p>

She felt a little guilty, now, for calling Draco paranoid. She wasn't any better; in fact she was worse.

* * *

><p>At the conclusion of the War, the Ministry had granted Hermione, Harry, and Ron each an Order of Merlin, First Class, and an ungodly sum of money—as if it thought to repay them for saving everyone's sorry asses from the terror of Voldemort. Harry had donated all of his share to the restoration of Hogwarts; Ron had funneled most of his into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes after being invited onto the staff by George, and splurged the rest on the latest racing broom; and Hermione had squirreled hers away for a rainy day, dipping into it only to support her own SPEW charities until they became self-sufficient (which seemed to happen right after she changed the name from the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare to the Society for Elfish Exoneration, or SEX).<p>

What? Her public relations manager suggested a more sexy name. How much sexier could you get? Sure, maybe her rallies sometimes attracted unsavory crowds but the elves tended to think it was funny, and it was all for a good cause. Furthermore, Hermione was able to use a lot of humorous wordplay in her speeches, and that made it all worth it.

Anyway, she hadn't touched the money except to help house-elves achieve a better standing in society—oh, and to buy herself ridiculously expensive finery that didn't even fit her in order to impersonate another woman with the goal of dragging an ex-Death Eater to hell.

Merlin's fucking pants.

After transforming, Hermione pretended she wasn't spending more time on Narcissa's hair today. It wasn't easy to style hair while hiding in a bramble, especially if it wasn't the sort of hair you were used to, and you had next to no experience styling hair in the first place. She had plenty of Polyjuice—she'd stowed about a gallon of it in her magically expanded, morbidly expensive purse—so she wasn't worried about being short on time today; with any luck she'd taken enough that she didn't have to keep sneaking drinks when Malfoy wasn't looking.

The walk up the drive passed quickly, but as soon as she stepped foot in the turnabout, her way was blocked by a familiar white shape.

"We meet again, Fairway, my old enemy," Hermione whispered to herself.

The peacock pawed the ground like a bull about to charge—but before he could sound the alarm, Hermione waved her wand and Confounded him again.

She walked casually past him as he staggered around, confused; she'd been practicing on pigeons and was pretty confident she'd cast the spell strongly enough to keep him drunk all day. She then casually flicked her wand at the closest fig tree; nothing visually changed, but on the inside, all of the fruit had fermented. That ought to cover up Fairway's behavior if Lucius stepped out and saw him.

Smiling to herself, Hermione mounted the stairs to the front door and knocked; almost before she'd finished, the way opened and Francis' head appeared, beaming up at her from behind his rims (which, now that she noticed, were about the size of normal glasses and therefore too small to cover his eyes; he wore them like reading glasses, and for a second Hermione was reminded absurdly of Dumbledore).

"Mrs. Malfoy!" he said, and everything in his tone suggested that he'd been convinced she wouldn't show up. "Please come in! The master is just finishing with a guest, but he has requested your presence in the drawing room nevertheless."

Hermione stumbled a little. "The drawing room?" she repeated, her gut falling like a ton of bricks. _All right, keep calm. Remember your breathing exercises._

Francis nodded happily, tended to her coat, then bounced off down the hall. Hermione followed with a little less exuberance.

Thankfully, Malfoy was not going to allow her to dwell on past traumas; as Francis opened the door ahead, Hermione heard the distinct sound of male voices locked in argument, and that snapped her out of her micro-panic attack quite nicely.

Who was Malfoy talking to? Hermione was stepping lighter now, trying to eavesdrop, but in a second Francis' face appeared in the drawing room doorway again, looking quizzical.

"Is the Madam sore of foot?" he asked with great concern. "Shall I put on a bath?"

Hermione blushed and shook her head; she'd been very careful about preserving Narcissa's modesty so far, dressing before she transformed and changing clothes only after the potion wore off; the last thing she wanted to do was get naked in this damnable house with _that man_ nearby.

Yes, that was the last thing she wanted.

"No, sorry, I was only admiring being here again," she said, bustling forward.

She got in the room just as the men were standing up; Lucius, so very distinctive, rising from the winged armchair to the right of the mantle; and another man, unfamiliar, standing from his seat on the left. The only evidence of any unpleasant exchange was the high color in both the men's cheeks.

"Ah, Narcissa," Lucius said, and his eyes ratcheted onto hers, and Hermione felt a great swooping in her stomach and had to look away; she disguised her discomfort by focusing, instead, on the second man. Lucius turned to him as well. "I apologize, but as I mentioned earlier, I had a prior appointment—"

"—with your wife, I presume?" the man finished, though he smiled as he said it; he moved forward, and Hermione noted that he was of a height with Lucius. Reflexively she offered him her hand, and he took it, bowing over her wrist.

Hermione's heart was beating fast; she tried to memorize everything she could about him, fully intending to track him down later. He was slender, more so than Lucius; he had black hair that tended towards curling, and large, pale green eyes. She doubted he and Lucius had just been having a friendly chat; there were a few rolls of parchment lying on the coffee table, and two cups of tea beside them, cold and untouched. Hermione was itching to take a peek at those papers, but somehow that didn't seem like something Narcissa would do.

She tried to look frosty rather than nervous as she drew herself up in front of the stranger. "And who is this?"

The man glanced, smirking, at Lucius, as if she'd just told a hilarious joke; Lucius clenched his jaw and shot Hermione a very obvious nonverbal warning. Hermione swallowed and took a step back as Lucius moved, placing himself between her and the man.

"I'm afraid we'll have to leave the discussion for another day," he said quietly, offering the man his hand. "Please send me an owl with an appropriate time."

"I will," the man said, moving past Lucius without grasping hands; he gathered up the parchment on the table and scanned Lucius head-to-toe. Lucius stood tall under the scrutiny. "I hope we'll finally be able to make a little headway then. Any at all would be a vast improvement."

"I agree," said Lucius, a low warning in his voice.

The man strode up to the fireplace, took a pinch of Floo powder from the silver canister on the mantle, tossed it into the flames and stepped in after it shouting, "Knockturn Alley!" He was immediately whisked away.

Hermione didn't have time to register any disappointment she might've felt about missing his name, because in that moment Lucius suddenly whirled around, grabbing her by the forearms and bringing his face very close to hers.

"What is your favorite book?" he demanded.

"What?" Hermione spluttered.

His eyes narrowed, and his voice became a veritable snarl. "You heard me."

And she did, a split second later—she blurted the first thing that came into her head, and as the words left her mouth she prayed to God that, if He couldn't spare her any luck on this, then at least would He allow her a quick death?

"_Jane Austen: Seven Novels_."

The tension held, winding tight, vibrating in the air like a thread about to snap—and then it did.

Lucius relaxed. "I apologize," he said, releasing her. She almost wished he hadn't; without his support her legs were ready to collapse out from under her. Oh thank Merlin she and Narcissa had the same tastes in reading, at least. "I had to check. I was mistrustful of the letter you sent, and you—well, you'd never spoken directly to any business associate of mine in the past."

But Hermione, still coming down off her fear-high, used the adrenaline to muster up a little anger. "Well, I certainly recognize you," she said, drawing herself up again, trying to hold herself like Narcissa did. Lucius looked at her, a grim, guarded expression on his face, as if he could smell an argument on the horizon; that look gave Hermione more confidence. "Honestly—mistrustful of my letter? Really, Lucius, you know elves don't have the best handwriting, I instructed mine to type it because I was short of time this week." She added a bit of steel in her voice, for effect. "You are not to grab me anymore. I shan't bear it. I am a new woman, and I will thank you to respect me, or it shall be far longer than five years before you see me again."

He glanced away, down, away again; he seemed not to want to look at her, as if he were abashed, or perhaps annoyed—she couldn't tell.

It was fucking lucky that he was preoccupied, too, because while he was fiddling with his cufflinks, Hermione spotted Belgium at the window, and hand just thrown a curse at the dog when he was raising his eyes again.

He looked at her quizzically.

"I thought I saw a bee," she explained away the wild arm movement she had to make in order to send the curse far enough. She could hear Belgium in the flower bushes and wondered if, in her excitement, she'd Confounded the poor thing too hard.

Hermione was blushing, she knew she was. Lucius looked at her, then at the window, his cold eyes narrowed. Then at last seemed to accept her story, and she'd barely had time to thank God for her luck when he was retreating toward the fire.

Mimicking his associate, Lucius grabbed up a pinch of Floo powder and tossed it into the fire. As the flames roared green, he glanced over his shoulder, and did a small double-take when he saw Hermione still standing in her original position, looking totally lost. "Come along," he said impatiently, beckoning.

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked. She didn't move; if they were going out in public, if someone spotted her with him, someone who knew Narcissa was out of the country—

"The estate on the shore," he said curtly, an eyebrow raised. "We'll be staying there for the weekend." He smiled a little, and Hermione wondered how he could look so condescending and _still _make her stomach knot like that. "Unless you had something planned for us?"

The touch of disdainful laughter in his tone made it clear that Narcissa, evidently, did not plan their excursions. But Hermione knew she could _not _go away with him. She might've had enough Polyjuice to sustain her, but what if she couldn't get away to take it? "I—"

"Good," he said, cutting neatly across her, "I had Francis and Harriot prepare it. I know it's your favorite."

Hermione's brain snapped like a sun-baked rubberband. She thought about apparating, but somehow she didn't think it was possible inside the manor; if she recalled correctly, Ron couldn't apparate out of the cellar when he'd been locked down there while Bellatrix tortured her. She thought about Stunning him—but by the time that possibility occurred to her, a few seconds had already passed, and he was watching her so closely, and his wand could be up his sleeve, just like hers, and she still didn't think she could take him in a duel—what if she lost?

"I just think it's quick, going away together right now," she murmured, trying to sound demurely nervous rather than scared fucking shitless. She smoothed down the front of her dress, then crossed her hands as she'd often seen Narcissa do. "I hadn't planned on it."

Lucius' eyes bored into hers. He looked ethereal, demonic, the smooth alabaster planes of his face lit sidelong by the green flames. She noticed how, in general, he was very still—he made very few unnecessary movements. It was inhuman. "What better way to reacquaint ourselves than return to the place of our honeymoon?" he said, and he sounded so very devastating then; she was captivated and horrified all at once by the low, rough honey of his voice. "You may remember why you married me to begin with—who can say? And if not, well, what harm is there in a short holiday?"

She was trapped. In that moment, she knew there was no getting out. He had that quiet, patient look about him that let her know he wouldn't relent until he got what he wanted. She thought again about trying her luck with dueling, but then she saw him reach over and pick up the serpentine cane leaning on the arm of his chair just out of her sight, and she died a little. He offered her his hand.

"Very well," she said, and she hoped she sounded aggrieved or annoyed, not defeated. She crossed the room and took his hand—she noted again the warmth of it, the roughness, and she felt his strength when it closed on Narcissa's delicate fingers. He could rip her apart.

As that horrifying thought crossed her mind, Lucius suddenly yanked her in, his arm snaking around her waist, their bodies aligned, the tip of his nose almost-but-not-quite touching hers. A peal of wild energy—was it terror? Was it lust?—raced over the surface of her body, her hairs standing up, her blood rushing everywhere but her brain. She was forced to look into his eyes.

Demon eyes—cold gray fire. She felt his breath on her lips.

They stepped into the hearth.

"Shorecliff Drive," was all he said; she tasted spearmint. And then they were gone.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN: I didn't deliberately withhold this chapter from you all - life got in the way of this update. Honestly I don't have the self-control to deliberately hold off on posting chapters, so forget I ever entertained that idea. And remember when I said this was going to be a few chapters? HAH.**

**_Please leave a review you beautiful, beautiful readers!_**


	7. Chapter 7

When the green flames died down, Hermione was allowed a single glance around the room—driftwood furniture, sea tones, sunshine beyond the windows—and then complete sensory overload, because Lucius Malfoy was kissing her.

She gasped; her arms were out at her sides, fingers splayed bizarrely, like she'd touched an electric wire—and she may as well have: a shock of pure, wild energy ricocheted through every nerve ending in her body, rendering her as stiff and useless as a corpse seized in rigor mortis.

It wasn't like being kissed by anyone else. Later, Hermione would compare it to every other kiss she'd had in her life, and marvel at the impact that pure terror had on lust. Malfoy didn't headbutt her, like McLaggin. Nor was this a slobbery Krum snog. And thank God he didn't shove his tongue down her throat and try to explore her esophagus, like Ron too often had. No, this was a whole other league of liplock _entirely_.

Through the white noise in her brain, she thought of a scientist preparing a glass slide for viewing: the way Lucius kissed was methodical, programmed to elicit the maximum reaction. He slid his lips up against hers deliberately, determinedly, removing all space between them, inhaling as he did so, and the stuttering sound of his breath was nearly as erotic as the hot touch of his lips. He was firm and smooth and he yielded just-so and he tasted sinful, he tasted like Amortentia _smelled_. He moved in closer—he was everywhere, the heat of him was surrounding her—she registered that his lips were moving, parting hers, his sharp tongue flicking out and dipping for half a second into her mouth, stroking the sensitive flesh of her inner-lip before sliding away, depriving her. One large hand was buried in her hair, holding her steady; his other was god knew where, she couldn't feel it, or perhaps he'd shoved it through her navel and was currently tying her up in knots from the inside out—

The hand in her hair dove suddenly to her flank, because he no longer needed to hold her head. No, _she_ was doing a marvelous job of keeping their lips from drifting apart. Somehow, those were _her _hands on him, they'd moved without her knowing, one clinging to the nape of his neck, the other buried knuckle-deep in that delicious hair, Merlin it was like touching music—he was so close, so fucking close she was running a fever, she was clearly unwell and needed to lie down, her head was swimming, she no longer had control of Narcissa's rogue body—

And then he was gone. All of it, the passion, the feel of him—he was taking her pleasure and walking away with it across the room. In the absence of the wall of his body Hermione staggered and nearly fell. It took her a second to right herself; there was so much heat in her face that she knew she must be tomato-red. She could still taste him: spearmint and tea. An ache had sprung up inside her that hadn't been there during the Floo. Hadn't been there for a long time, in fact. It was acute.

"It's been some time since we've been here," he was saying, breezy as the seaside view beyond the room's arched windows. Hermione stared at him. He hadn't escaped their tryst entirely unscathed: a delicate, oh-so-smug smile was playing at his lips, which were perhaps a shade darker than before, and there was a blackness to his eyes that sent another round of shivers racing over Hermione's—_Narcissa's_—skin.

What had she been telling herself? That he was old? Right. He was old. Dirty old man. Oh, yes, and he was evil. He'd done some terrible things.

Now, _how _to get him to do that thing with his tongue again…

"Do you remember? It was spring last time. And cold, Christ! We stayed indoors all week." She noted he was still clutching his cane. Ah, so that was why she'd only felt one hand on her… interesting, really, that he hadn't dropped it to snog her…

His guard was still up.

But Hermione felt oddly centered now, like his touch had burnt away her nerves. "No," she heard herself say; her voice sounded distant. "I don't remember that."

He turned to her, and eyebrow raised. "Oh?"

"No," she said, firmly. She gathered her skirts and stepped neatly after him, and then past him, over to the window, seating herself on the padded bench; the view was lovely, if terribly high. She could see why the place had been named Shorecliff.

He was watching her. She couldn't muster up any fear. Her synapses had been overfired and no longer worked. "No, I suppose you wouldn't remember," he said quietly, and _oh_ _yes_, he was moving close again: she could hear the soft footfalls on the hardwood. She pretended not to feel any sort of visceral reaction. "It was so long ago, after all."

She glanced at him, then back out the window. Silent. She knew anything she dared say could backfire; perhaps keeping quiet was her best route now.

Evidently so.

He leaned his cane against the wall and slid up behind her on the bench, his arm draping around her, the flat of his palm on her abdomen, the wide plane of his front tucked up against her back. He rested his chin on her shoulder and peered out at the view with her—the view she was no longer really seeing.

She tried _so hard _not to tremble, not to move at all.

She could feel him smile, tracing along the edge of Narcissa's lovely profile with those glinting eyes. "You should tell me about yourself," he murmured, low and throaty. God, his _voice_. It should be illegal. It was hazardous.

Hermione swallowed. "What do you mean?"

His smile morphed into a grin, and for a wild second as she saw the gleam of teeth in her peripherals she thought he might bite her. "You said you were a _new woman_," he purred. "Why don't you fill me in?"

"Why don't _you _fill _me_ in?" she ground out; she could feel his throat on her bare shoulder, the weight of his jaw, his breath on her, the velveteen skin-on-skin. The contact was burning her alive. Bits and pieces of her mind kept insisting, in a fragmented chorus, that it was fear she was experiencing, and panic, and sometimes fear and panic manifested in strange ways, and she was just so, so terrified and sweet Merlin she needed to leave, now, to save her own sorry hide (which was still very present and mortal under the enchantment of the Polyjuice). The larger, more pragmatic part of her acknowledged that she was so ridiculously turned on she might've been a teenager again, like her hormones were out-of-control, and this explanation had far more weight to it, because a fearful person did _not _fervently wish that their object of terror would lean _just a little closer…_

She felt his lips press briefly to her ear. "Whatever are you talking about?"

"Tell me what you've been up to," she said. _That was casual, right? That sounded casual. Not at all prying or accusatory or too high-pitched_.

His quiet laughter sent a jolt right down to the pit of her stomach. "Business, as usual." His fingers pressed on her ribcage, slipping along the ridges of her corseted dress, up and down. "But I know how that bores you."

Hermione steeled herself. "Actually, with Draco now working at the apothecary, and my always having to visit him there, I've found myself becoming more interested."

He tilted his head; she knew he was looking at her, his eyebrows raised. "Oh really?" His voice dripped with disdainful surprise. "I was of the opinion that women generally detested the discussion of corporate matters."

Hermione felt a sudden pang of annoyance. "Well, it's true," she said, and before she could stop herself: "Just because I'm a woman does not mean I cannot be interested in business. There are plenty of women involved in business."

A dead silence met her words. He stopped petting her; he stopped moving altogether. Now _that _was terror—that flood of mind-warping adrenaline had a distinctive feel she couldn't confuse with anything else. She immediately wanted to shrink away from him, but with his arm locked around her like that, she knew she wouldn't get more than a few inches.

Then his hand started again—up and down, sensually. "I suppose," he said, a playful lilt to his voice (she allowed herself to breathe), "but I meant I would like to focus on other topics, perhaps more interesting ones that may further our… understanding of one another." He leaned in closer and started nuzzling at her neck, breathing in her scent; she felt a sudden, sharp nip of teeth at the same time as a sudden flick of fingertips across the peak of her breast, and she jumped a little, gasping. A rush of heat settled between her legs, and she couldn't deny it: she was so wet she knew her knickers would be ruined. If she'd been blushing before, it was nothing compared to now. Lucius chuckled.

"M—Lucius," she said, and felt immediately ashamed at just how breathy Narcissa's voice sounded. God, she was _not_ supposed to be allowing this, let alone _enjoying it!_ She pushed his hand away, tried to shrug out of his embrace. He let her go without a fuss, watching like a hawk as she settled on the other end of the window seat, but his smile was cruel, and his dark eyes told her just how unfinished he was with her. It made her blood run cold.

Then he said the very last thing she was expecting. "Let's talk politics. Where do you stand on Shacklebolt's reinstatement?"

She gawped at him for nearly five seconds before catching her own unladylike expression and smoothing it away. "You assume the discussion of business will bore me, and you think a better alternative is _politics_?"

"Very well," he said, entirely unfazed, "Quidditch. Which team are you supporting?"

_Now he's just fucking with me._ "Lucius, really."

He looked at her slyly. "I rather thought you liked Quidditch."

Hermione raced through her memories and brought up the Quidditch World Cup, during which she distinctly remembered Narcissa Malfoy looking revolted, sitting just behind them in the top box. "You know very well I do _not_, Lucius."

They regarded each other; Hermione got the distinct impression he was still testing her, feeling her out. It made her heart jump like a frightened rabbit, but not in the same sort of frenzied way as before. No, she knew if she just kept her head on her shoulders, he'd have no reason to suspect. She could make it through this unharmed.

"You did not attend the Piotrowski concert last month, did you?" he asked.

Hermione perked up. Clements Piotrowski was a rather famous wizard composer, one Hermione was all too familiar with, if her vinyl collection had anything to say about it. He was the genus behind some of the most beautiful pieces she'd ever heard, and she made time to see him at least once a year. "Oh, yes," she said at once, "I adore him. Did you attend?"

His smile deepened. "I'm afraid I did not," he said. "I haven't been able to for some time. His concerts are always rather—intimate—and unfortunately I do not blend as well in the crowd as I used to." He glanced askance at her. "Such a small guests list… I'm surprised you didn't attract unsavory attention, being out in public again… after the War."

He was zeroing in again; she straightened under his gaze. "No one paid me any mind." She waved it away. "It was worth it."

"With whom did you attend?"

Hermione didn't immediately understand the question. "No one."

Lucius hummed, leaning back, casting his eyes out to sea again. "I imagine it was rather lonesome. I find it difficult to picture, you out on your own. Do you _always _attend concerts alone now, Narcissa?" His chin ticked up, and a touch of indolent disdain colored his voice. "I rather thought you'd… seek company for such outings."

Hermione felt a twinge of something; perhaps it was defensiveness, she really couldn't place it, but it compelled her to speak. "Well… not for Piotrowski. His music is enough."

"I quite agree." Lucius stood, and before Hermione could so much as blink he'd wandered over to the door. He paused at the jamb. "Lunch is in fifteen. I thought perhaps we'd take it on the porch or in the garden. You'll be staying in the master bedroom—you recall the master bedroom?" He levelled a truly wicked look on her. "I certainly do. I'll just go settle in, and allow you the same courtesy. Fifteen minutes." And then he was gone.

* * *

><p>The master bedroom of Shorecliff wasn't nearly as large or opulent as the one in Malfoy Manor. Then again, Hermione had time to examine this one, and the one at the manor was nothing but a fleeting memory. Perhaps she'd oversold it.<p>

When she was certain she was alone, Hermione took a swig of Polyjuice (hopefully the damn stuff didn't actually contain alcohol, what would that say about Narcissa?), and, assured of her anonymity, she dropped her bag on the ottoman at the foot of the large bed and gazed around. It was like sitting in a brown-and-teal tangle of driftwood. Really odd place for a honeymoon—it seemed more like the sort of place you'd go for a fishing trip. But then, Narcissa had surprised her so far, perhaps the woman had a particular liking for these sorts of things. Somehow, she doubted Lucius did.

She glanced up at the ornately carved headboard, the covered canopy, and blushed furiously when she realized that Draco may have very well been conceived here. Oh _god _was that a thought she didn't want to pursue. She darted into the washroom and splashed water on Narcissa's face, trying to wash away all the evil images. In the process she caught a glimpse of her stranger's reflection in the mirror—large, unbelievably blue eyes fringed in long Bambi lashes, ageless skin, golden hair. she looked like an airbrushed model, and Hermione couldn't even say it was all glamor charms: Polyjuice didn't transfer those. Narcissa was just naturally flawless.

It wouldn't do. In the private of the bathroom, Hermione admitted that she was going about this for unjustifiable reasons. It was _wrong_. Perhaps she could apparate. Her wand was up her sleeve, she could try apparating back into the bedroom, just to test it out. But when Hermione spun on the spot and attempted to will herself into nothing, all she achieved was a bumbling pirouette that had her tangled in the shower curtain, slipping on a bar of soap and crashing into the tub like a drunk teenager at a house party.

Oh. Oh, shit. She winced. Well, so much for that. She was stuck here. And—oh shit, was that the door? Hermione had just registered the knock before Francis, accompanied by an even tinier house-elf, came trotting in. The both of them stopped abruptly when they noticed her crumpled in the tub.

"Madam!" Francis gasped, hurrying over and helping her out (he was surprisingly strong for his size). The littler elf stood back a bit, looking at a loss for what to do. Like Francis', this elf was wearing a silk pillowcase embroidered with the Malfoy crest, only this one was done in teal and brown, to match the house. When eventually the elf spoke, the voice was undoubtedly feminine, but not nearly as squeaky as she ought to have been. "Is the Madam faint? Shall we draw a bath?"

"Oh, no, thank you," Hermione said, and she couldn't help but smile. Did every elf react to an adverse situation by drawing a bath? Their first-aid skills were seriously lacking.

"Mrs. Malfoy, the master has requested that Harriot and I lead you to the gazebo, since he assumed you'd look for him on the veranda," Francis was saying. He was still watching her with the utmost concern, as if frightened she might collapse again. "Are you quite sure you're all right, Madam?"

"I'm fine," Hermione said firmly. "Why did he send the both of you?"

They hesitated. "The master was—he thought perhaps you'd want me to fix your hair," said Harriot, looking extremely nervous.

Hermione burst out laughing. "Oh did he?" She rolled her eyes, and looked at herself in the mirror. Narcissa's hair was indeed mussed from their—from that—_thing_ that happened, but to actually send a house-elf to fix it…

Shallow, misogynic bastard.

Hermione didn't feel nearly as nervous around the house-elves as she had around Lucius; after grudgingly accepting Harriot's offer and settling herself at the vanity, she turned her attention on Francis.

"Remind me—I forget—who prescribed you those glasses?"

For a moment Francis went a bit cross-eyed as he focused on his spectacles. "Oh, these? It was the master who gave me these." He looked suddenly quite subdued.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. Hmm, intrigue. "Lucius, you mean? He gave you those?"

Francis settled himself on an ottoman and fiddled with the edge of his pillowcase. "The master sent me with a note and the proper funds to an optometrist in Diagon. When the doctor owled them a week later, he gave them to me. This was shortly after the Ministry passed the Elven Liberation Act."

A rather dark note had crept into the elf's voice, but Hermione was not deterred. "But that means you're a free elf, doesn't it? Don't glasses count as clothes?" She looked at his pillowcase. "Why are you still dressed as a slave? You're welcome to wear whatever you want now!"

Hermione could tell Francis was itching to leave, to avoid the confrontational situation, but—having worked with elves so often before—she knew what to do. "Please tell me, Franics. It's important to communicate."

Eventually Francis caved. "When that awful house-elf liberation group passed the law requiring the freeing of elves, the master asked which article I wanted. I was ashamed—I had always been a good elf, I'd always put my duty first, but the master is very mindful of the law, and—well—I had always had difficulty seeing, and since it was mandatory"—he half-glanced at Harriot, who, now that Hermione noticed, was wearing a little pair of ballet flats—"I opted for these. But I didn't want to leave Mr. Malfoy, or the manor."

"Nor I," said Harriot in a low voice. "That awful SEX group can make us take clothes, but it still cannot tell us where to work."

Hermione frowned at her. "So you both oppose the Elven Liberation Act?"

They swallowed visibly and exchanged a frightened look; Hermione immediately backed off. "Never mind, it's unimportant," she said, trying to appear aloof again. But she really couldn't help herself. "You two sound different than other elves. You speak differently."

"The master wanted change after the Act," Harriot said quietly, starting to comb through the golden hair. "He wanted to be sure us elves followed the Act to the tee; there were horrid people checking on us, you see. Fergus was the first to adopt the human methods of speech and to take a free name"—she sighed—"but luckily the master was pleased, he said it made us more personable too, so the rest of us followed."

"Fergus?"

The elves gave her an odd look. Harriot answered, though she sounded very bewildered. "The master's personal elf. Fergus manages the upkeep of all of the properties and all of the Malfoy elves. If the master needs his elves to work in synchronization on a large project, it's Fergus he collaborates with. He's been in the family for generations."

Feeling she was treading on dangerous ground—since Francis was looking at her with some concern, as if maybe she'd suffered brain damage—Hermione decided to shut her face. In absolutely no time at all, her hair was done to perfection, and she was being led back through the house to the garden.

It wasn't quite as sumptuous as the one surrounding the manor, since not so many plants would grow in sand, but whoever the gardener was (and Hermione had a suspicion it was Harriot) they were a genius. The elves led her along a stone path to the center of the garden, where a gazebo stood facing the shoreline; they bowed her inside, and after a deep breath, Hermione threw herself again into the lion's den.

Lucius had shucked his outer robes and undone the topmost button on his shirt; he'd also given free rein to his hair, which eddied around his face like threaded platinum. He stood when she arrived, holding out her chair—_why did he have to be such a gentleman, the bastard?_—and without his robes Hermione could see the hard outline of his body, the impressive length of his strong legs, the hard span of his shoulders… She immediately looked away, focusing on seating herself. He pushed her chair in and sat himself across from her. Damn those eyes to hell.

They were silent for a time, eating. Hermione was momentarily thwarted by all the fucking cutlery, it was supposed to be lunch for Christ's sake, she normally ate it with her _hands_—then Lucius spoke. "I apologize for earlier. I should not have spoken down to you."

Hermione's hands stuttered and she nearly injured herself with the crab fork. She cleared her throat. "That's all right. I mean—I forgive you."

"I should be able to speak freely with you about whatever topic you desire. I understand Draco's work at the apothecary has piqued your interest; I imagine he hasn't been talking it up, but it's not my place to decide what you may or may not take interest in." He took a bite from his scone and chewed thoughtfully. "As you know, my work has always been a complicated affair. You met my associate earlier—"

"Yes, who was he?"

Lucius smiled. "I don't know his name. He goes by _Ink_."

Hermione scribbled furiously at her mental notes. "And what is it you do?"

"I am a distributor."

"Of?"

Lucius chuckled. "Drugs, Narcissa. Illegal potions, substances and items." He tilted his head. "Dragon eggs and Doxie Dust seem to be all the rage now, but difficult-to-come-by potions have always been our best sellers."

Hermione's heart paused, considered, then kept beating. She'd always known he was an evil bastard: here was more proof. Not something she could use in court, but at least it was confirmed that Belby was onto something.

Why, then, did she feel her stomach plummeting like that?

"I see."

He tilted his head at her. "You look subdued."

"I didn't expect my husband to still be involved in the same sort of activities that destroyed our family." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Hermione wanted to slap herself; for a second the idea of being in Narcissa's position was so real that Hermione actually felt a pang of hurt, as if it were actually her own husband running around conducting criminal enterprises behind her back. She blushed scarlet.

Lucius merely raised an eyebrow. "I didn't destroy my family."

Oh god, more uncharted territory. She needed to be nonchalant. Hermione did a good job of rolling her eyes. "I tire of the logistics."

Malfoy threw back his head and laughed, then—a deep, candid laugh, so unexpected that Hermione jumped a little. He really was magnificent when he laughed… "You may not be so quick to judge if you had ever attended a board meeting." He smirked. "Would you like to? There's one next week. You would be allowed to attend as my guest."

Hermione all but salivated. "Oh, yes."

He stood. "Very well, that matter is settled. Come—the wind's picking up. Let's go inside." He looked at her slyly as he helped her from her chair, then suddenly yanked her in, drawing her fully against his body and pressing his lips again to hers. This time was no less dizzying than the first, only now she became aware of something pulsing against her abdomen. Merlin, was that—? Was he—?

But Lucius drew back before she could lose her head; twining his fingers with hers, he led her determinedly back through the garden. "The elves have been positively frothing to draw a bath… Join me."

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><p><strong><span>AN****: Deepest apologies for the wait, I had major writer's block and lots of life to deal with.  
>Warning: things get rather unruly in the next chapter c; Btw updates happen faster with more <em>revieeews<em>...  
><strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**Mind the rating. **

* * *

><p>"A <em>what?"<em>

Hermione literally dug her heels in, tugging against Lucius' grip and trying to break away, but he only laughed and pulled her in, wrapping an arm around her waist and clamping her to his side.

"Lucius, I don't think—"

"Come now, Narcissa." Lucius had her inside now. They were in the building. She'd been dragged several meters in the house before she realized she should've tried to apparate outside, and damn her for not doing so, because now she was _trapped_ and she needed to do something drastic in order to—

"You've never refused me before."

And then he rounded on her suddenly and forced her back up against the wall and he was kissing her again, and she couldn't think; she was reduced to a motionless, powerless observer. She could feel both of his hands on her now, one in her hair, the other stroking a bold path down her back, fingers splayed over her ass. He gripped her and hoisted her up, and she was pinned, he was grinding against her in slow, sensual movements and sweet Merlin there was nothing wrong with this, _how could there be anything_ _wrong with this?_

Her hands flew up to steady herself, scrabbling at his shoulders, over his back; she dared not admit even to herself that she spent a great deal of time stroking his neck and hair and the strong ridge of his jaw, and yes, it _looked _like she was coaxing him on, the little moans she was emitting may have been construed as consent, but if somebody forced her under oath right then she'd only admit to playing her part to stay alive. He was a criminal, for God's sake. The way he kissed was _criminal_…

She could feel him against her core, hot enough to burn and she found herself making a muffled noise that was totally inappropriate, but when his lips relinquished hers for air and his eyes slit open to ratchet onto hers, the black ice in them silenced her. He didn't give her time to recover; he immediately went off to torment her in other ways—layering soft bites down her neck, nipping her ear—a gasping moan broke out of her throat, and she tried to push him off. She really did. Only it was difficult, because he was literally carrying her through the house now, so obviously she couldn't try too hard, otherwise he might drop her and then how were they supposed to resume snogging? Anyway she doubted she could push him off, what with her legs being wrapped so tightly around his hips…

She became aware of her surroundings again when her bum hit the edge of a countertop. It was like emerging from a deep sleep—blinking and disoriented, it took her longer than necessary to realize she was in a bathroom, _his _bathroom; a sunken tub full of bubbly water stood just off to her left (Merlin the elves worked fast!) and to her right and center was Lucius, and _oh Merlin_ he was making short work of her clothes. She'd lost her heels and all of Harriot's efforts on her hair had been totally wasted. She just had time to register how suddenly loose her dress was fitting before it fell to her waist and all that protected Narcissa's modesty was her brassiere.

_Narcissa_.

"Wait—_wait!"_

To her great astonishment, Lucius stopped. They locked eyes, and for a long moment, Hermione had no idea what to feel. She was simultaneously relieved and deeply disappointed and terrified and destroyed by the enormity of her desire.

Then Lucius gave her a sinister half-smile and turned up everything a few more degrees. He took her hands and placed them on the front of his shirt, then stood there braced on either side of her, waiting. The unspoken invitation was clear. This was the turning point. This was when she decided—

"I need to leave."

For a second he looked surprised. Then his polished veneer reemerged, maybe out of habit, but more likely it was because Hermione hadn't removed Narcissa's hands from the front of his shirt. She was teetering. And he knew he could push her whichever way he wanted.

"We've only just arrived." He leaned in, until all she could see were those demonic eyes. He caressed her face, went in to nuzzle her neck. "No one need know," he murmured into her ear, and that awful voice sent a wave of lust rushing through her, across every inch of her skin until it ultimately gathered between her legs. She clenched fruitlessly. Merlin she wanted him. "Come have a bath with me. Such a simple thing." He tugged at her lobe, flicked a bra strap off her shoulder. She still hadn't taken her hands off him. He ran a firm palm down her chest, cupping her breast in the fabric, clasping her lightly. She shivered. "Everything else can wait. All other decisions can wait. Reacquaint yourself with me—remind yourself how it _feels_. And then you can walk away and, if it is your wish, we needn't ever speak of it again. What harm could it do?"

It was wrong. Wrong. Everything was _so wrong_.

"I'm not the same person, Lucius." She was stuttering, but in Narcissa's voice it sounded like birdsong, fragile and feminine. Lucius inched forward like a cat scenting blood. "I'm a completely different person. You don't even know me. How can you do this without even knowing who I am anymore? I don't even want to do this."

Well, it wasn't an outright lie. Hermione may have been on fire but she had a very strong suspicion that Narcissa _didn't_ want this. Wasn't this some sort of rape? Wasn't Hermione essentially an accomplice, holding a woman down while Lucius had his way?

No, it wasn't that intense. Narcissa wasn't here and wasn't being harmed, not directly. But it was still a horrible thing to do to a person's body—their personal sanctuary—and however Hermione felt about Lucius, she had no quarrel with Narcissa. Who _wasn't _being hurt?

Lucius wasn't interested in letting her run through that particular internal debate. He took her face in his hands, gently. "Ah, but that's the allure," he purred. "If you were the same person, I wouldn't dream of doing this." And then he kissed her again, and her mind was made up for her.

She flicked a button through an eye. _Criminal_. She flicked another. _Bigot_. And another. _Terrorist. Liar. Killer. Drug-dealer. Disaster of a man._ She didn't even pause at the last one, but slid it free, then pushed the white fabric off his broad shoulders, revealing every sculpted slope of his pale torso. _Demon. _

He was luminescent, mutely powerful, lined with muscles that flexed catlike under his sateen skin; her eyes were immediately drawn to the stripe of blonde hair at his lower abdomen, running from navel to beltline. She gulped and flushed and looked into his face, only it wasn't safe to look there, either: his Sickle-bright eyes gored into her, the soft pink of his lips drawing back in a triumphant grin, flashing bright white teeth. Oh fuck. He'd won.

Her bra vanished and she shivered in the cold, instinctually shutting her eyes like a terrified virgin. She didn't want to look at Narcissa. She didn't want to think about how twisted this was—all she wanted was to keep on basking in Lucius Malfoy's delicious attentions. Touching and being touched. It had been _so long _since she'd been touched, and it had never been like this…

Alarm bells were clanging in her head but she shut everything out. _No one need know_. She had never done anything wrong in her life and a suppressed part of her desperately wanted to experience this—this one thing, this one little breath of passion in her passionless existence. Just this one. _Such a simple thing_. She'd never have anything like it again and by God she wanted it now. She could swear she was forced, she could convince herself later without much trouble; she barely felt like there was any choice at all, anyway. Or alternatively she didn't have to ever think of it again.

There were holes everywhere in her little farce but right then, she couldn't give a fuck.

Lucius was more than willing to hush her thoughts.

She thought perhaps he'd be tender and gentle, like Ron had been when they'd first given up their mutual virginity, and every time after. Her experience with sex was limited to those soft touches; she hadn't considered things could be different. She soon realized how absolutely absurd she was.

Lucius was _not _a gentle individual. In one movement he'd ripped her dress from her and now she was in her stockings and knickers, and in a second he'd drawn the snakehead wand from his pocket—when had he unsheathed it?—and brought it down in a slashing movement so reminiscent of Dolohov that Hermione nearly screamed; the last of her clothing fell away. He was kissing her, only it wasn't like before: his movements were no less incendiary but he was rougher, more brutal, almost frightening as he wrenched her closer. Now there was more skin contact than Hermione knew what to do with; luckily Malfoy had some ideas.

"Oh, oh my _god_." The blonde head had descended and that wicked mouth was on her nipple; Hermione looked down and had the immediate, bizarre impression that she was watching some very interactive porn, because the willowy woman's body below her was _not _hers, yet she could feel Lucius' lips on the sensitive peak of the breast, and she definitely felt it when his hand circled up and flicked the dusky pink, hitherto-unattended nipple on his left.

The sight ramped up her arousal so violently and unexpectedly that she moaned aloud, and the volume of it disturbed Lucius, who had until that point allowed his eyes to drift closed as he focused; they slid open now and darted up at her, arching an eyebrow, but he did not stop his torment, didn't even slow, and Hermione practically shuddered herself off the counter. Hands—hands she controlled—flew up and buried in Lucius' hair, pulling at the long strands, scraping the scalp; the fingers she moved were long and delicate and manicured, and so very beautiful. Hermione looked down at the body below her and saw skin nearly as pale as Lucius', skin that dipped and curved over long legs, narrow waist, lovely womanly hips—she looked between her legs and saw not black-brown hair, but a soft dusting of gold, glinting with need. Even her _bellybutton _was a perfect little circle. Hermione didn't have any desire to explore Narcissa's body tactilely (would it have been homoeroticism or masturbation at that point?) but when Lucius slid a hand up her thigh and between her legs and strummed a fingertip from her needy opening to a torturous millimeter just below her clit, something about watching him doing it to Narcissa, but experiencing the sensations firsthand, drove Hermione completely insane.

_"Please, Merlin, oh my god, Lucius, holy-Jesus-fuck."_

Somehow he understood; the shark's grin he gave her made her shudder again, and he ran a light, teasing touch over the nub. The ensuing shot of pleasure made her gasp and she instinctively tried to buck into him, but in a moment the _bastard_ stood, toeing off his shoes and pulling one of her hands away from his hair and down to the clasps of his pants.

There wasn't any monologue about his flaws now; a hot white fog now occupied most of Hermione's headspace and she wasn't capable of much else but ripping away at his clasps and yanking his pants off like some sort of sex-crazed zombie. What she was experiencing wasn't normal arousal. No. She was so turned on the switch was broken. Good lord, how the fuck did Hermione_ goody-two-shoes _Granger come to this?

She did pause, however, when he stepped out of his clothing and was finally naked, but her stillness was due to awe rather than any reformed misgivings. His legs were nice out of slacks, long and athletic, but she wasn't exactly gawping at those; all of her focus was on his cock, which stood out rigidly from the hard lines of his hips, pointing right at her as if in accusation. She really shouldn't have stared, it was so fucking suspicious, she was supposed to have seen him a billion times before, but Lucius seemed beyond noticing any incongruences in her behavior; he stepped closer and the smooth, thick length of him pressed against her thigh. It burned like a brand. He gripped the base and treated himself to a bit of a massage as he watched her watch him; she could feel him twitching and pulsing and it sent another fiery rush of lust directly to her center. She was a little stunned he was touching himself in front of her, actually; she thought men tended to be uncomfortable about things like that. Ron had always been sheepish whenever she'd walked in on him, anyway. Lucius, apparently, had no such reservations.

She nearly giggled. _Arrogant prick. You'll do exactly whatever you want, and no less._

He spoke. "Touch me." It was not an invitation. His hand withdrew, but almost before it had she reached out, nearly overeagerly, and took him in her palm, feeling along the scorching steel of him (too tentatively, she feared, but she really didn't have a mind for acting just then). He was heavy and her fingers hardly closed around the breadth of him; she had a sudden, weird fear that perhaps he'd hurt her going in. _Going in?_

He was watching her touch him with a look of such stark hunger she wondered if he'd gone celibate during the separation, and this was the first he was getting in five years. If so, he hadn't really taken to abstinence that well. He eventually got impatient with her caresses and yanked her roughly off the sinktop and back into his arms; she was disoriented and for a second she wondered why he was carrying her _away_ from the bedroom.

Then he dropped her. She yelped before she hit water and was immersed to the crown; this tub was _deep_. She heard laughter above the surface, and she barely had time to push back above the water and gasp in a breath before he'd slid in after her and shoved her up against the tub wall.

Evidently Lucius enjoyed foreplay. Hermione was far from complaining. There was a strip of metal lining the shower door in front of her, and Hermione could see their entwined reflection in it. She could just make out her own expression: raw desire, and on Narcissa's face it was breathtaking, and very much mirrored in Lucius. Together, surrounded by the suds of the bath, they looked like a pair of angels locked in sin. It sent yet another wave of arousal coursing through her; she was so hot she felt close to passing out.

Hermione forgot about morals and reason and simply watched, mesmerized, as Lucius pushed her golden hair aside and proceeded to attack her neck and shoulder, layering kisses and teeth up and down her rattling pulse-point while his hands went _everywhere_: one alternated stroking, flicking and twisting her nipples—which were now hard enough to hurt—while the other did obscene things between her legs. The water lubricated their bodies and made every one of his movements a slick sensory nirvana. He knew precisely where to touch her and the total lack of fumbling ineffectuality was enough to bring her right up to the sweet, teetering brink—she reached down and gripped his cock, which was poised between her legs, and he growled and slid a pair of fingers inside her, corkscrewed once, and she came.

Pleasure seized her and shook her so forcefully that she nearly threw Lucius off; he had to clamp an arm around her waist as she bucked and writhed and gasped and shouted through the flood. Oh, no, this was too much. This was scary. How in god's name would she ever reassemble herself after this—how would she ever be whole again?

As she began to come down she heard a quiet laugh in her ear.

"And you're quite sure you don't want to do this?" When she nodded without a moment's hesitation he laughed again, louder, earnestly. "My god, you're a siren." He ran his lips down her trembling spine. "I cannot believe how erotic this is." He grabbed her hip and spun her around; bubbles eddied and swirled away like clouds. Hermione felt hot, flushed, relaxed from coming, but not comfortable; she was once again being stared down by Lucius Malfoy, and she doubted if she could ever get comfortable with that. She wondered suddenly if it was just Narcissa's body that was responsible for how strongly she'd felt that orgasm, and perhaps Narcissa was simply more sensual than her, that led to a whole line of awful depressing thoughts about her own body, and why the fuck she herself had never been ripped out of her skin like that before?

Lucius once again interrupted her downward spiral. He snatched a glass phial balanced on the edge of the tub, upended it over his palm, then tilted Hermione's head back and began to massage its creamy contents into her hair without so much as a word of explanation. She stared at him, openmouthed, for nearly ten seconds before she pulled herself together enough to enjoy it. Even in this he wasn't gentle: there was pressure behind his fingers as he worked the shampoo into her scalp, but the firm strokes of his hands felt all the better for it. The soap itself smelled like peonies and sweet peas and she immediately loved it.

Thus Lucius transitioned them from torrid near-sex to a surprisingly soothing round of grooming and massaging. Hermione thought blearily that this was nearly as good. He rubbed down every inch of her—hands, arms, shoulders and neck, chest and back, even the hypersensitive flesh at the apex of her legs, which he plied and rubbed with increasing weight until she was fully aroused again and was starting to rock into his fingers, at which point he withdrew, flashing his teeth to let her know that, yes, he was indeed torturing her on purpose and loving every minute of it.

_Infuriating arsehole_. The thought had barely crossed her mind when she felt his fingers again, only now they were on _her_ arsehole. She gasped and tried to jerk away but he clamped a hand on her hip and held her steady while he stroked a line from her tailbone to perineum, his face inches from hers, drinking in her expression. His lips were parted and he idly tongued a canine as he worked, his fingertips circling the forbidden ring of muscle, black lust in his eyes. Hermione whimpered and grew feverish and was on the verge of panicking as she thought he was going to push inside her—when he moved on to massage her thighs, his expression all indolent amusement.

_What a—fucking—motherfucker! _She glared at him, but her anger lacked fire; she could hardly be angry at him while he stood there rubbing her feet, occasionally pecking an innocent little kiss to her ankle or sole. Narcissa was not ticklish, not anywhere, and for once in her life Hermione marveled at being touched without feeling the need to burst into hysterics. It was… strange, and not necessarily in a pleasant way. She had reflexively laughed and pulled away when he'd splayed his hands over her stomach, but the sensations hadn't come, and she'd felt rather dumb about it and blushed at him. Lucius, for his part, seemed to be thoroughly amused, and had watched her the whole time as if cataloguing her reactions; there was something rather different about his languid gray eyes now, something impish about his smile.

_I cannot believe how erotic this is_. The sentence niggled at Hermione. There was something sinister there, and she was just putting her mind to figuring out what when Lucius dropped her foot and drifted close to her again.

"Now me." Hermione's jaw dropped. He smirked, slid a finger under her chin and closed her mouth. "Go on."

Hermione went scarlet but didn't pass up the opportunity to feel him up. She'd been inwardly dying to touch him back. He was hot under her fingertips, his skin glowing, a pink flush in his fine cheekbones; his eyes slid half-closed as she took her turn massaging shampoo into his long, sumptuous hair.

As she worked the strands he drawled, "I had been thinking about cutting it short—"

_"NO!"_

Her shout made both of them jump. Hermione clapped a sudsy hand on her mouth and turned apple-red. He stared at her a moment, taken aback—then broke out into full laughter and beckoned for her to go on washing.

The process was shockingly relaxing. More so than when she'd been on the receiving end. Hermione wished she'd done something like this before, in her actual life; already she was getting familiar with the deep, aromatic natural smell of him, how he moved, the small tics in his expression as she applied herself to his body. It was a very good way to learn someone—and quite intimately, too. He was in great shape, even considering his age, and as she soothed away the tenseness in a bicep she blurted without thinking, "How do you keep your form?"

His jaw ticked up. "Liquor bottles are heavy."

She _tsk_ed him, slapped his arm. "Oh come on."

He looked amused at the gesture. "I mainly swim."

"Oh do you? I did that for a few months, but the chlorine really dried out my hair, it got unmanageable and it's already so insane on the day-to-day. I moved on to jogging but it's hard on your joints, I was always waking up sore. I really can't get over how ridiculous people look on the machines too, so lately I've just been supplementing all the jogging with this lifting regimen—"

She stopped dead. Oh god. She'd forgotten she wasn't Hermione, and the very last person on earth who would've dumped all that on Lucius Malfoy was Narcissa. Her full-on panic attack was curtailed sharply, however, when Lucius—whose expression hadn't changed from one of quiet interest—suddenly said, "The elves tend to the pool, there really isn't need for chlorination. It's the best way I've found of working out excess energy. Well, aside from running down Belgium in the mornings when she steals the paper, but she hasn't done that since she turned two." He raised his eyebrows at Hermione. "Why have you stopped? There's a knot in my shoulder."

Hermione had just been trying to imagine the severe, stoic figure of Lucius Malfoy chasing a puppy through the halls of Malfoy Manor, but it was just too bizarre, and after a second she shook her head and went back to massaging him. She reached his stomach and had barely laid a fingertip to the dark streak of hair below his navel when he shifted, very subtly redirecting her fingers off his abs. _Ahh, so it's true: every monster has a weak spot_. She didn't try to exploit it, partially because he was still quite terrifying to her and she wasn't sure how he'd retaliate, but she smiled to herself and set to rubbing down his back. When she reached the base of his spine she didn't hesitate a second to run her fingers lecherously over his firm ass. She wasn't any kind of expert but she knew enough to appreciate his absurdly gorgeous rear-end. For his part Lucius seemed to like her admiration; he grinned at her like she'd given him a verbal compliment, anyway.

She was silently squirreling away all of this information—up until she realized that none of it had anything to do with her actual purpose there, and she couldn't do anything with it later.

Except think about it when she locked him up.

He moved again, and his cock brushed against her arm.

She started and glanced up at him; he raised an eyebrow. _Go on. _She reached out and took it, pushing it through the ring of her fingers from base to tip, while simultaneously pushing all other thoughts from her head. He was so hard; the knowledge made her warm with pride until she realized that he wasn't really seeing Hermione Granger, and therefore she couldn't take credit for the state of him. Still, there was something inherently marvelous about a man at full mast, triply so if that man happened to be Lucius Malfoy. She couldn't get over how _good _it felt to touch him: there was no give to him, and when she reached the base and squeezed, his member flexed like a muscle; her own breath quickened as she pulled her hand back up to the ridge of the head, then up further, running the pad of her thumb over the slit. Lucius gave zero reaction except to lean into her hand, but she could see the jolt of his heart against his ribcage, and the slight glaze in his eyes.

Ultimately, though, she was reminded that she couldn't read him at all. She'd taken his passive expression to mean she should go on plying him; in actuality, he'd had enough of bath-time and was ready to proceed to something a little more personal. He moved, twisting left, grabbing a towel off the nearby rack and yanking it open; he spread it on the marble at the edge of the tub, close enough for a corner to dangle into the water. She had no idea what to make of this strange behavior and was about to ask before he grabbed her, lifted her unceremoniously from the water, sat down on the towel, forced to lay back and then (as a foggy idea of what the hell began to form in her brain) he pushed her legs apart and solved the mystery for her.

"Oh _yes_," she announced, and almost laughed at the blatant relief in her voice—like she'd been plagued all her life by some terrible puzzle to which Lucius had just presented a simple, wonderful solution. Fucking _hell_. He was doing that thing with his tongue, only not on her mouth now. She knew which she preferred. He scraped oh-so-lightly over her clit with his incisors and she nearly writhed out of his hands. He ate her in the same exact way he kissed: methodically, his movements slow and forceful one moment, light and teasing the next. For a while she couldn't understand how he was changing tactics so perfectly to match the rise and fall of her sensitivity, and assumed it was because he knew Narcissa's body so well. Then it struck her: he was _paying attention_ to her body, focusing on it, moving with it. She was moaning and arching her back almost incessantly; her breath was uneven, fluctuating; she might've even been embarrassed at her own wanton behavior if she'd been in the state of mind. But she must've been communicating properly, because Lucius was using all her nonsensical output and turning it into the most stimulating experience of her life. Merlin, she'd had this done to her once before, but for whatever reason it hadn't been much of a revelation then. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it hadn't been _Lucius fucking Malfoy_ doing it.

Without drawing back, Lucius shouldered her legs, took her hips in both hands and yanked her closer, working quite forcefully now. In the process his nose brushed her clit, and that did it. She came screaming.

While she twisted and bucked her way through another orgasm he kept her mostly pinned to the floor with one hand; the other was God knew where, she really didn't care. He was strong; through the fog Hermione thought back to how easily he'd carried and pulled her around, manipulated her body—_Narcissa's_ body—as if she were made of feathers. When the last delicious pulses died away and Lucius finally drew back, she brushed the damp gold hair out of her eyes and sighed happily, basking in the loose-limbed afterglow. She couldn't remember a time she'd felt more relaxed. After a moment, however, she noticed that Lucius was still moving, and sat up to see what he was doing—just in time to watch him come all over her stomach and breasts. He went on stroking himself through the eruption and a few moments after; then he parroted her sigh and sunk back into the bath, drifting off to sit across from her, eyes closed, looking like the picture of contentment.

Hermione stared at him, completely shocked. Eventually she unstuck her tongue. "Why did you do that?"

He didn't move. "What do you mean?"

"Why—" Hermione coughed and blushed. "Why did you do that?"

He smiled, but his eyes stayed closed. "Repeating the same question does not provide clarification, Narcissa."

Hermione tried to manage her embarrassment. "Why did you make yourself come just then?"

He finally opened his eyes and gazed at her curiously. "Why does it matter?"

_Because I wanted to do that, you prick. Who just tosses off in the middle of foreplay?_ Hermione looked down at herself and reddened a little. She got up and wiped herself clean with the towel she'd been lying on—then she slid back into the tub, sitting uneasily across from him while he went on lounging about.

She could've sworn they were going to fuck. She glanced askance at him, wondering. Perhaps that had been some sort of perverse attempt at chivalry—she _had _said they should move slow. But it was a stretch, and she seriously doubted that was the actual reason. He hadn't shown the slightest interest in taking things slow since the whole mess began.

His eyes opened. "Let's go outside."

Hermione gaped. "Right now?"

"Certainly. Or—" He glanced at a clock hanging over the toilet and scowled. "Damn, we won't have enough time to walk down to the water today. Tomorrow, then. But there's time to visit the nesting site." He pulled himself out of the tub, grabbed a fresh towel and slung it around his hips, striding out of the room before Hermione could get out another word. She re-washed herself at top speed, grabbed a towel and hurried out after him.

He'd already mostly dried his long hair and was belting up his trousers. For a moment Hermione wasn't able to choose between all the questions yammering in her brain. She eventually settled on, "Do we have to go now?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I suppose we don't technically have an _appointment_," he said sarcastically. "Is there something else you would like to do?"

_Yes: you! You fucking prick!_ "It's windy," she said, hoping to god it was.

"I rather think 'windy' is the best sort of weather for this," he responded, now buttoning up a fresh shirt. "Go on, get dressed, I'll give Harriot her instructions for dinner in the meantime." When Hermione didn't move, he tutted impatiently. "We are not having sex right now, Narcissa. Now stop acting like a petulant child and put on some clothes."

Hermione's temper soared. "Oh _excuse me _for thinking we were going to have sex!" she burst out. "It just seemed like the logical conclusion to—to all of that!" She waved at the bathroom door. "Why aren't we having sex, then?" It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out _Is it because you think I'm ugly?_—then she remembered she was wearing Narcissa's lovely skin, and none of those old insecurities applied anymore. That was probably why their previous activities had been so mind-blowing: Hermione had been free to enjoy them without worrying about how she looked or what her partner thought of her. She took a moment to marvel at just how much self-confidence affected sexual gratification.

Lucius looked irritated. "Because," he said, "there is a specific way I would like to fuck you, and I don't particularly feel like doing it now." He stopped and faced her down. "Are you going to come with me, or will I see you at dinner?"

_Prick_. She was on the verge of telling him that he could fuck himself with dinner when he added, "Harriot tells me the cliff has never been so active before. You'll regret missing the takeoff at sunset."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but (damn him) her curiosity was piqued, and now she _had_ to figure out what the hell he meant. She could've asked, she supposed, but if Narcissa and Lucius had honeymooned here, the real Narcissa would know. "All right."

As she left she did her best not to think about what had just happened, but it was impossible. She replayed everything in double speed and groaned to herself. She now had a head full of dreadfully incriminating memories that she could never, ever divulge to anyone. If she was smart, she'd leave. If she was smart she'd walk right out of the house in her towel and apparate home, and never make contact with Lucius Malfoy again.

Who would've thought. Hermione Granger—a total fucking idiot.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN****: Will Hermione ever make the right choice and leave the house? Will Lucius reveal the specific way he intends to fuck her? Will Hermione's friends find out that she's morphed into ****_Whoremione?_**** Join us next week on The Catfish: A Tale of Extraordinarily Bad Decisions!**

**Also did you know that if you leave a review, a Skittle will pop out of your USB drive? It's true! Try it!**


	9. Chapter 9

A few steps outside of Lucius' bedroom Hermione remembered that Shorecliff Drive was as foreign a place to her as Malfoy Manor, and just like back then, she was once again reduced to wandering strange halls with increasing desperation, looking for a room that the real Narcissa could've found in a heartbeat. The longer it took, the more suspicions she'd arouse, and god knew she didn't want Lucius to start firing off his security questions again. Fuck it all, but this was too much stress to deal with in one day.

As luck would have it, she only had to run in a blind panic down about six hallways before she spotted her salvation in the form of another house-elf. He was bustling away in the opposite direction carrying a small laundry bag and a shoebox, but he stopped when she called after him, "Wait!"

He turned to face her. It wasn't Francis like Hermione expected; this elf looked considerably older, and his expression wasn't nearly so pleasant. He, too, wore a silken pillowcase. Hermione had a suspicion that all the Malfoy elves wore them as a sort of uniform, similar to the Hogwarts elves and their towels. His particular one was dark gold.

"Oh thank god," she gasped, sagging with relief. "Could you help me? I'm lost."

The elf looked her up and down with a surprisingly critical eye. Hermione tensed. "Interesting," he said, and she started at his voice: totally human, deeper and older than Francis' but with the same upper-class accent. No wonder Lucius had approved of the change: Hermione hated to admit it, but they were much easier to talk to than the elves she'd worked with at the Ministry. She didn't necessarily support the elves changing so much to appeal to wizards' preferences, and would never suggest it to one, but in her blackest of hearts, she preferred it the Malfoy way.

"What's interesting?"

He raised an eyebrow and put his nose in the air, looking very patrician indeed. She wondered if his duties over the years had included raising the Malfoy children. It would make a lot of sense. "You have vacationed at this property dozens of times. Now it seems you're unfamiliar with the layout."

Hermione gaped at him. It took a long minute for her to unstick her tongue. "I'm just… I'm a bit disoriented."

His eyes narrowed. "I see. Well, you're in luck: I've laundered your clothes and gathered up your shoes each from the back porch and the west stairwell"—he hefted his parcels—"and was just in the process of bringing them to your room." He turned and resumed walking down the hall, calling back at her as he went, "Come along, then, and mind you don't drip on the hardwood."

Hermione had to jog a little to keep up with him, clutching nervously at her towel. She had a strong suspicion that this was the elf that Francis and Harriot had mentioned earlier. Lucius' personal elf. Fergus, they'd called him. She wanted to confirm it but couldn't think of a way to do so that wasn't risky.

Anyway it didn't matter, for in a moment he'd led her into the master bedroom, set her clothes down and announced, "If you somehow lose your way again, Mrs. Malfoy, please call for me."

"Thank you…" Hermione paused, then dared to add, "Fergus." She was ready to play it off if she'd gotten it wrong, but to her massive relief the elf only bowed and apparated. She let out the breath she'd been holding and sent out a silent prayer that she'd never have to deal with him again. The other two had been pleasant company, and Fergus had reminded her of a butler. The sort of butler you'd read about in a shitty murder mystery novel.

Hermione busied herself with drying and dressing, paying closer attention to the tasks than she normally would have. She could feel the thunderous avalanche of shame hurtling down on the edges of her mind; if she lost focus now, if she allowed herself to stop and think, she would be consumed. But without Lucius nearby to run his hands—and mouth—over every inch of _Narcissa's_ skin, she couldn't generate enough distractions to fend off her own crushing scruples for long, and once she'd stepped into her heels and pulled a comb through her damp hair, there was nothing left to do but sit down on the edge of her massive bed and sob miserably into a pillow sham.

Oh Merlin. Oh god, what had she _done?_ If anyone ever found out about this, she'd lose everything—her friends, her job, possibly her life (if Lucius was the one to catch her). She was hanging in the balance now, all because she'd been such an impulsive idiot and allowed herself to take a bath with Lucius Malfoy.

She laughed a little, suddenly, mid-sob. It was so fucking _ridiculous_. Lucius Malfoy had just taken a bath with—and done a few unmentionable things to—a Muggleborn witch, and he hadn't even noticed! She almost wanted to rub his bigoted face in it. But that made her think about his bigoted face, and what he'd rubbed it in earlier, and was immediately pulled back into the remembered pleasure of it.

She caught herself when she felt a now-familiar hot flush traveling down her body. Jesus, when had she become such a mess? She was Hermione _fucking_ Granger. And Hermione _fucking _Granger had never even come close to allowing her libido to govern her decisions. It was just—_him_. He was to blame, really. She would've had no trouble keeping her head around anyone else on the planet.

She tried to find her way to the foyer. Truly. She gave it her all. But when she rounded the same corner past the same portrait of the same ugly seagull _six fucking times_, she was forced to acknowledge that she was too directionally challenged to go on. She needed help.

With a little groan of defeat she called out, "Francis!" and then, when no response came, "Harriot!" Fuck it all. They must've been busy, or the magic hadn't worked because Hermione didn't carry the Malfoy name, and they therefore weren't bound to her summons.

_Carry the Malfoy name…_

Hermione shook off the thought as if it were a poisonous spider, and yelled, "Fergus!" with a crack in her voice.

He snapped into being in front of her, bowing once (or rather, jerking his head a little). "What do you require, Mrs. Malfoy?" And then, without missing a beat, "You have been crying."

"I—no," Hermione hiccoughed, "I've just got allergies. I need you to lead me to the foyer. It's been so long since I've been in this house that I've lost my way again."

He stood there watching her closely for far too long, and at one point as her nerves peaked Hermione wanted to scream at him for being insubordinate. The impulse shocked her. Jesus, it was happening. Two days in Narcissa's shoes, and she was already going against her own life's work. She was turning into one of _them_.

"This way," he sighed at last, turning and flicking his fingers. Hermione noticed a rather nice wristwatch looping his tiny arm.

Lucius had apparently been waiting on her for quite some time. As she entered the front room she spotted him lounging in a window seat with a nearly empty tumbler in his hand, peering out at the misty view, his sleeves rolled up and his topmost buttons undone. He'd tamed his hair back in another plait, however; Hermione found herself wanting to undo it again, just to card her fingers through the strands and pull away at the kinks. He didn't turn as she and Fergus approached; the elf gave him a real bow and said, partially at the carpet, "I've located your wife, Master Malfoy."

"So you have," he said at the window; Hermione couldn't help but stare at his lips. A snipped of memory—him, naked, twined and writhing with her in the water—sprang across her mind's eye. She could feel the blush rising in her face and quickly looked down. "Thank you, Fergus. If you would, please instruct Francis to strip the fruit trees. They've fermented and all of the animals are drunk. A peafowl tried to fly into a third-floor window and injured itself. Also, remind him to feed Belgium. She's passed out at the moment but will be hungry when she awakens."

The elf bowed and snapped away. Hermione gulped. Lucius must've gone to the manor and back while she'd been bumbling around Shorecliff like a lost child. She felt a stab of remorse for the injured bird. She hadn't meant to hurt any of them. Then she thought perhaps it had been Fairway, and she didn't feel so bad anymore.

Lucius stood; his eyes were boring into her again. This time she forced herself to return his stare, doing her best to emulate Narcissa, though it was difficult with her blushing so furiously. He leaned in—she thought for a moment he'd kiss her, and almost jumped forward to meet him, but he merely took her hand, twining his fingers with hers. Then he made for the door.

He led her down a stone-flagged path out a side gate and along the edge of the cliff. Hermione had never been keen on heights; she kept her eyes straight ahead, trying to pretend there wasn't a sheer drop just a few feet to her right. But as the path began to descend down the precipice, becoming more rugged and challenging, she found herself flat against Lucius' side, clinging hard to his arm as if for dear life, and damning Narcissa's heels to hell. More than once she shut her eyes and relied on his guidance. He chuckled at her. Prick.

At a particularly nasty bend in the path Hermione abandoned all pretense and slid up behind him, locking her arms tight around his waist and pressing her face into the center of his broad back. Fuck all that nonsense about Gryffendor bravery, this danger was too real. Lucius grunted a little and tried to wriggle free but she made a sobbing noise and held on tighter. He laughed. "Good lord, woman, where is your composure? Here—take off your heels." When she didn't move, a soft warning crept into his voice. "Narcissa." She squeaked again. "Do as I say."

Hermione gulped and knelt shakily to undo her straps. When she pulled them off, he took them from her, then—to her horror—knocked her legs out from under her and hefted her up in his arms. She screamed and clawed for purchase at his shoulders. He winced. "Good god, woman. _Relax_." He caught the look of dull shock on her face and gave her a brief, remarkably natural smile. "We're nearly there."

It was too surreal. He went on walking; she found herself staring at him, unable to look away, not the smallest reason being that the only other things to look at were the death-plummet to her right, and the rickety path ahead. In the daylight he looked damn near a god, so very refined and aristocratic even with his shirt undone, his hair so shockingly white it was blinding, his eyes like polished coins. She felt the play of his muscles all around her and experienced the now-familiar burning in the pit of her stomach. Christ she hated herself sometimes.

Her fingers loosened on his shoulders, and eventually she dared to loop her arms around his neck. His lips curled up in a corner, smugly, and he glanced down at her. She must've forgotten her brain back at Shorecliff, for within minutes she was leaning into the crook of his neck and breathing him in. He smelled sublime. She heard him chuckle again.

"Open your eyes."

Hermione obeyed only grudgingly—then gasped loud enough to make him wince and almost drop her.

They were standing in the middle of a wide stone ledge with a spectacular view of the cliff face and the frothing sea below. The sun was slanting down now, bathing everything in orange. Hundreds of winged figures were taking flight off the crag, each about the size of a large cat; Hermione instantly recognized them as drakes. Each one was a different vibrant hue, and all together they spiraled up on the high winds and formed a whirling tower of glittering color, punctuated here and there by a kaleidoscopic burst of flames. Some rose up nearly to the clouds, clasping each other in what appeared to be some sort of mating ritual; others folded in their leathery wings and hurtled into the water, only to shoot up again with a silvery fish in their jaws. It was mesmerizing.

"Oh wow," she breathed. Lucius set her down and handed back her shoes; she yanked them back on distractedly as she wandered right up to the edge, forgetting her fear for a moment. "They're so beautiful."

He wandered up close behind her; she felt his hands, warm and heavy on her hips. "This is the largest known colony in Briton. They gather like this just once a year to breed." He gestured at the cliff, where Hermione could just make out the rough stony nests built into the side and, within them, the tiny, wriggling young. After a moment Lucius added, "Draco used to love this."

She glanced at him quickly. For the most part he looked nonchalant, but having spent so much time staring at his face, she could distinguish the sadness under the well-practiced mask. Her immediate instinct was to touch him, comfort him, but at the last second she remembered herself and drew back. _He's a criminal,_ she thought, looking into the aquiline face, the sharp eyes. _He's wicked and whatever happened between him and Draco was probably well-deserved_.

But she couldn't resist sticking her nose where it didn't belong. "I sometimes feel as if I never listened to your account of what happened five years ago," she said delicately, twining a golden strand of Narcissa's hair around her index finger.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "That may be because I never really provided one."

She shot him a darting look. "So why don't you now?"

He hummed. "I could delve into it. But first I want to know the reasons that have led you to ask."

It was on the tip of her tongue to go on layering her ruse, and spout some nonsense about how, if they wanted to reopen their relationship, he needed to be honest with her about everything. But something made her stop. She moved her eyes slowly over his face, coming to a rest on his lips. They looked soft and warm; she remembered them on her flesh. She finally gave him the truth. "I don't think I understand you. And I want to… badly."

A line appeared between his eyebrows. "I find it shocking that you do." He seemed to come to a decision. "Very well." He sounded more resigned than anything. "I don't feel this will settle matters, but then, how could it possibly hurt? The simple truth is that the War destroyed me. I may have brought it upon myself, and it is certainly no excuse for my behavior, but it is why everything happened as it did. At times I think I must have died when I arrived in Azkaban; my memories from then until after the Final Battle are all surely ones I pulled from the depths of hell." He looked into her eyes. "I know you and Draco both believed I failed you. And why wouldn't you, when I spent most of the miserable affair wandless? I also knew you resented me for bringing this debacle into our home in the first place." He ran a hand fretfully over his hair, scowling at the flat red horizon. "So I resorted to the only thing I knew when faced with disaster: I became angry. When Draco confronted me after the Battle, I gave him my wrath. Anger was all I had."

Hermione listened with her jaw hanging open. "Why didn't you just reassure him? The War was damaging to everyone. People need each other after tragedy." She thought about Draco, crying out, surrounded by the Fiendfyre. "He was traumatized. He needed you to comfort him." She paused. "Why didn't you apologize to us? Aren't you sorry?"

His eyes snapped around and he glared at her. For a moment she believed he'd yell at her. Then gradually his shoulders relaxed, and his breathing grew soft again. He looked puzzled. "I have never been sorrier. But I offered no apologies because it would have simply been too little, too late. A meaningless gesture. You and Draco would have rejected them, and I feared that rejection. I sensed that an altercation was inevitable, however, so I did a selfish thing. I gave you both a reason to leave. It was less painful that way."

Hermione felt a massive surge of some unnamable emotion. When she opened her mouth and spoke, it manifested as anger. "So you pushed your family away because you were afraid of being vulnerable?" She had no idea where all this feeling was coming from, but she abandoned reason and went on riding it through. "That's terrible. Th—_we_ needed you, and even after everything you couldn't bear to abandon your pride for us."

Lucius tilted his head at her. "Do not presume to understand."

Her temper flared. "I can presume whatever I want! You—you're such a coward!"

His mellowness didn't hold in the face of that; he straightened his spine and moved closer, towering over her, and she was struck suddenly by his height, the breadth of his torso. "How dare you?" he breathed; she shivered and the rumbling malevolence in his voice. "You dare judge me? You know nothing about what I have been through, about how much I pay for my mistakes. To have _my family_"—he thumped a forefinger into his chest—"come to me expecting shelter from the storm, when I have none to give—how could you possibly understand? To watch _my child _suffer at the hands of a man that I had pledged my life to, and to be forced to stand by and watch like an invalid!" He made an enraged noise in the back of his throat and stormed off, back towards the path, but Hermione was all fired up on a passion that didn't even concern her; somehow she sensed that he hadn't said any of this to anyone before, and some mad part of her wanted to push him, force out all of the old shame and rage right there on that ledge.

"Don't you run away—"

Lucius immediately rounded on her. "You have no idea," he snarled. A long arm whipped up and he pointed at her face. "How could I apologize when you had already turned against me? I am not a masochist. I will not dash myself on the rocks if it would serve no purpose." He dropped his hand and shook his head. "As soon as I emerged from Azkaban I knew you would not hear me out. I came home expecting us to be united in our plight; instead I found I had been abandoned. You left me no choice but to shut you out."

They stood in silence for a few endless moments. Hermione didn't know what to say. She was overwhelmed by the bleakness of the situation into which she'd staggered.

As she groped for some sort of answer, a yellow drake landed on their ledge and crooned low in its swanlike throat. Lucius glanced at it, his mouth a flat line. He reached into his pocket almost mechanically and drew out a small drawstring pouch, from which he pulled a dog treat. The drake crooned again; he tossed the treat over. It snapped it up and licked its scaly chops.

Hermione closed her eyes a long moment. "You really shouldn't feed wild animals."

Lucius clicked his tongue. "One cookie is not going to drive the species to extinction." He gave her a wry look as he tossed another at the beast. "Oh calm your tits, it's a god-damn drake, it's not going to follow us home."

She gave an involuntary laugh. "You are so rude."

"Only occasionally." He clapped loudly, once, and the drake screeched and took off. The sun was sinking and the light around them had gone from auburn to steel blue; night was approaching. Most of the glittering figures had left the precipice. The show was over.

Lucius dusted his hands and started back for the path; Hermione hesitated. "Can't we apparate from here?"

He scoffed. "And what would be the fun in that? I rather enjoyed the hike down."

Hermione glared at him. "I'm not going back up in the dark."

"You may find it less frightening in the dark. The drop would be harder to see."

"So would the path. No, sorry, I won't do it."

He sighed and about-faced. "Very well."

A soft touch and a sharp turn later, and they were back in Shorecliff. The dining area, by the looks of it. Hermione was momentarily annoyed that they hadn't apparated to their little viewing platform in the first place—but the issue was driven out of her mind when she inhaled a whiff of Harriot's cooking. It seemed the little elf had been busy: dishes and cutlery had all been neatly arranged on the sandy teak tabletop, and Hermione could see steam still wafting off the entrée.

"Ah, perfect timing," Lucius said. As he had back at Malfoy Manor, he drew out Hermione's chair and saw that she was seated before settling in himself. It truly was a twisted world if the most courteous man Hermione had ever met happened to also be one of the vilest—although she was still having a difficult time remembering just how vile he was.

As soon as they were seated, Hermione heard a _pop_ and saw Harriot's long ears appear at Lucius' elbow. She served them quickly and discreetly; Hermione still felt a little uncomfortable, but she supposed since the elf was free, and clearly not being held here against her will, whatever she chose to do with her own time was her prerogative. It was a small reminder of why Hermione had given up working in elven welfare: it had been too much of an uphill battle.

Lucius tucked in as soon as Harriot apparated away again, but Hermione could feel him watching her closely as she ate. The food was delicious enough to detract from her nerves, though: Harriot had laid out the most orgasmic arrangement of sea foods Hermione had ever tasted in her life. She sampled a little of everything and then some. Jesus, even the bread was incredible. Like baked bliss. And the _wine—_she was halfway through her glass before she noticed the Malfoy crest on the bottle, and realized this must've been one of the famous family vintages. No wonder they were still so prized even after the War had drug the Malfoy name through the mud. Here was by far the finest pinot gris Hermione had ever consumed.

But her ultimate undoing was the ceviche. Christ on a trampoline. She had to exercise some control not to snort it directly. It wouldn't be too weird if she asked Harriot for her recipe, would it?

Lucius' eyes never left her face.

Eventually the silence became uncomfortable to the point of disturbing the meal, and Hermione paused in the middle of her second helping of ceviche (all right, it was her third, but so what? She exercised regularly, she could afford to indulge on occasion).

"I'm sorry," she said, breaking the silence.

Despite all his staring earlier, Lucius suddenly had no interest in meeting her eye. He took another bite of food (he had a taste for the ceviche too), downed a long drought of wine and then said, "That's interesting."

It wasn't the response she'd been expecting. It made her uneasy. "I am."

"I don't doubt it." Lucius wiped his mouth and finally looked up at her. "But what is it you are apologizing for?"

Hermione thought. "For pushing you earlier," she said eventually, then hesitated. "And everything else. I feel as if it's all I can say."

She wasn't even sure what she was referring to anymore. Was she Narcissa, the contrite wife appealing to Lucius' affections by giving in to his wish for reparation? Was she hoping to wheedle her way closer to him and uncover more information about his felonious side-life? Or was she Hermione, apologizing for deceiving him, for putting them both in this decidedly fucked-up situation?

Lucius' eyes wandered to the tapestry of a seagull hanging near the window. (Merlin, this place were full of those, and they were _hideous_.) "I think," he said slowly, "I should like to accept, but not now. In any case I do not want to linger on what happened earlier." He met her eyes levelly for a long moment, during which she struggled not to sneak another bite of food. "As I recall, you enjoy Piotrowski's music. Have you read any of his late wife's fiction?"

Hermione perked up again. "All of them," she said at once, not quite able to keep the maniacal note out of her voice—the one Ron said she got every time she started talking about books. "_Fairness To Return _and _Tired Ramparts _are my favorites, but I never got a copy of her last one. _Gladysburg. _I missed the reading in February."

The memory of it still nauseated her. Belby had asked her to work late, and she'd been stuck in the office that snowy night, wishing that for once in her life she'd chosen leisure over work. She'd regret it tenfold when Emilia Piotrowski died of heart failure two months later. The woman had been as much an artistic genius as her husband, and she had had the same eccentric habit of keeping her work just as small-scale. She'd held readings for each of her new novels as they were completed, and during these she released only a few hundred copies to the public. A fabled few were ever signed. And once they were all sold, getting a copy was damn near impossible. Her readings had become a sort of booklover's convention; whenever a date for one had been announced the Cauldron had been packed for weeks in advance.

Now that Emilia was gone and printing had stopped altogether, her novels had become so scarce that Hermione's own small unsigned collection was now worth a nice sum. Flourish and Blotts had a signed copy of Emilia's last book, _Gladysburg_, on display—never for sale, as they'd told Hermione nearly a dozen times. And no, she was not allowed to touch it. Hermione had gone a little insane staring at it in the window.

"Hmm, that _is_ unfortunate," Lucius said, looking pensive. "I have not been to one of her readings for many years. Not since _Tired Ramparts_, in fact. Actually, that was my least favorite of her novels."

Hermione gaped at him. "How dare you?"

He laughed. "I didn't agree with the message."

"The—are you kidding me? Hers were honest words. It was an honest message."

"I disagree." Lucius lifted a mug of dark tea to his lips. For a moment Hermione didn't understand where it had come from—but then, looking down, she realized Harriot must've cleared the table while she'd been distracted. Now all that sat in front of her was a mug and a mint. She said a silent, heartfelt goodbye to the fifth helping of ceviche she never ate.

"You think she wasn't being honest?" Hermione went on, popping the mint into her mouth. Immediately she felt it dissolve and magically freshen every cell in her body. She gave an involuntary shudder and tried to hide her gagging behind her napkin. Lucius smirked at her.

"I think she was misleading her audience by focusing too much on the wrong topics."

Hermione managed to recover fast enough to nearly cut him off. "The book's about death, Lucius, there aren't any pleasant topics to focus on."

"Of course there are." She gaped at him, and his smile deepened. "Perhaps _pleasant _isn't the word, but I still disagree that Emilia had only bleak material to work with. Judging by the way your jaw has become unhinged, you aren't interested in listening to what I have to say, but try. For me." He paused; their eyes fused. When Hermione said nothing, Lucius continued. "I do not like Emilia's way of painting death as some utterly appalling thing. She spent most of the book waxing eloquent about the horror of it. It was reminiscent to me of the Dark Lord and his rhetoric; those who had subscribed to it viewed death as the epitome of evil, the most terrible thing that could befall a person. I myself was once included in that group. It has taken me many years to understand that death is a sacred thing, and far more complex than that. Like birth, it is vital to life. But also like birth it is one of the most abused and misunderstood concepts. Emilia's is a popular outlook: to understand death in any other manner borders on taboo."

Hermione couldn't help herself. "Does all that make it easier for you to kill people, then?"

He stared at her flatly for so long that she was forced to rupture the silence herself, or risk suffocating in it. "Never mind."

"Never mind, indeed." His voice was a calm sort of livid.

Hermione floundered, quailing under the look he was giving her. "I—look, I understand that death is necessary and all that, but people shouldn't go around thinking it's a positive thing. If you convince yourself it's not all bad, what's stopping you from killing people to get what you want? Or empathize properly with people who have lost someone?"

"Fear of death did not stop Voldemort from killing people to get what he wanted. Nor did it draw out any compassion from him."

She started at the name. She didn't think Lucius would ever dare say it, but he gave no indication that he was even aware of what he'd done. His eyes were scouring holes in her; when he spoke again, his voice was soft. "I was not arguing that death is some sort of fun party. I was merely disagreeing with Emilia's blind fear of it." He lifted his tea, looking again at that ugly watercolor seagull. Hermione didn't bear the silence very well, weighed down as she was by the subject matter, and almost cried for relief when he changed the subject. "It's laughably late in the match but I never did mention how beautiful you look today."

Hermione blushed. Butterflies materialized in her stomach. She glanced down—and saw Narcissa's hands on the tablecloth. The butterflies immediately crumpled to ash. Damn her, she'd forgotten she wasn't even in her own body. Lucius hadn't even been talking to her. It was, for the first time, not a relief to remember that he didn't know who she was. Rather, a weight like a dead elephant seemed to collapse in the pit of her stomach.

"Thank you," she said, and she sounded strained even to her own ears.

"Not a style you've worn before," he mused, reaching over and running a fingertip along the edge of her sleeve; he made the barest of contact with her skin. Electricity shot up her arm. "Even so… purple has always been your color."

All of the sudden, and with no explanation, she was irritated. "Right."

He noticed the change in her mood. The corner of his mouth curled slyly. "I'd missed your eyes," he went on, and she registered that he was closer now—closing in on her again. "Many things have changed about you, but those have remained the same."

She drew back a little, frowning. She had not the fuzziest clue why she was so pissed all of the sudden, but it only seemed to encourage him. "Still, I must confess," he murmured (she could feel his breath now, cold from the mint, caressing her cheek and the length of her neck; despite herself a little peal of anticipatory pleasure shot through her), "there _is_ one thing you certainly do better now."

She turned to him, finding him even closer than she'd expected. His eyes were all she could see. It felt as if every emotion in her body was being pulled out of her into those eyes—well, almost every emotion… "What?" The word was a breath. She could feel herself beginning to tremble again but she didn't waste any energy hating herself for it this time: she'd had a taste of what he could do, and that alone silenced her reservations. She did acknowledge that she'd probably need therapy after all this was done but she wouldn't bother with logistics now, not while those sinful lips were hovering so close to hers.

He shifted, and she felt his hands on her again, on her cheek, on her neck. He was drawing her in and she didn't once think about resisting. "The way you kiss me," he breathed, and all the hairs on her body rose as if anticipating a lightning strike. His gaze was dropping and she instinctively tilted her head up to meet it. "So… _sincere_." And then his lips touched hers, at long fucking last, and she didn't care about decorum: she sighed like a lovestruck teen being snogged for the first time, and her whole being was reduced to mush.

She realized sharpish that he was trying to frustrate her. When she pushed in to deepen the kiss and send them back to that delirious, heart-pounding place she remembered from earlier, he'd draw back, teasing with a nip of teeth or a flit of tongue; when she buried her hands in his hair and tried to hold him steady he tilted his head up just enough to be noncompliant, laughing a soft, languid laugh. It was both enraging and terribly sexy. She was on the verge of slapping him when suddenly the air compressed around her, and she just had time to figure out they were apparating before she found herself back in the master bedroom, sitting on the foot of the bed where just hours ago she'd cried herself silly. Now she was in Lucius Malfoy's lap, locked in the shackles of his arms, and sorrow was the farthest thing from her mind.

She was quickly forgetting herself in the feel of him, the delicious smell that mingled tantalizingly with the aroma of pea-and-peonies from their bath earlier; Narcissa's body moved of its own accord and pressed as close to him as humanly possible. It brought her thigh in direct contact with his groin, which stirred against her and sent a shot of pure, heady lust right to her center. There was no messing about with peeling off clothes this time; Lucius seemed to think enough slow undressing had been done that day. She felt him withdraw his wand, and a second later she gave a little shocked gasp as all the barriers between them vanished. Now every searing inch of him was ironed against her and she didn't think she could rip away from him even if she tried.

It was insane, really. There she was again, for the second time that day, hiding in Narcissa's body and pressed up against a very nude Lucius Malfoy, snogging him with a desperate abandon that hadn't even existed in her life until this point. She wasn't nearly as coy as before. Her hands went everywhere, all over him, one moment gripping his lovely arse and the next massaging over the steel length of his manhood. She watched his hands now, and whenever one strayed near his member she shoved it away. There would be no wanking off at random this time. He noticed the difference in her demeanor; she felt him smiling against her lips as he gamely returned every stroke of her hand with one of his own. His fingers made lazy circles around her areolas, darting in to flick or tweak or pinch as he saw fit; in no time at all he had her nipples upright and aching. He didn't move a hand between her legs, though. Hermione was prepared to let that slide for a few more minutes, but if he didn't get around to touching her soon she was fairly certain she'd burst into flame and roam the countryside as a horny fire demon the rest of her life.

Merlin she loved the noises he made. Deep growls and soft, low exclamations that vibrated under her skin. In just a few moments, the both of them were turned up past the point of no return. The thought didn't scare her nearly as much as it should have.

She was reminded again how mercurial he could be when he suddenly gripped her hard and threw her down in the center of the bed. She yelped in shock; that little edge of fear was back, ramping her awareness up to cocaine-level clarity. He slid over the bed towards her, trailing his mouth up her body, biting and kissing at random. Every touch branded her, shot fire right down to her bones; he slid past her sex without so much as glancing at it, up over her navel, between the peaks of her breasts, right up to the hollow of her throat, which jumped in time to her drumming pulse.

Then he did something she hadn't anticipated. He groped around for his wand, found it lying discarded on the mattress nearby and flicked it a second time. The canopy above them rustled and parted. Hermione gawked. Set into the ceiling above the bed was a huge, circular mirror; in it, she saw Lucius and Narcissa entwined on the teal duvet like sirens twisting in the sea. Lucius took her wrists and pinned them above her head; she felt suddenly vulnerable, terrified; her eyes locked onto Narcissa's in the mirror and an upsurge of panic made her struggle. But Lucius subdued her by layering the solid expanse of his body over hers and claiming her lips with his own again, and she lost track of who, and where, she was.

He was heavy on her, and she felt his cock jerking against her skin like some living thing trapped between their bodies. Her pussy clenched in response and a moan escaped her throat and into the charged bedroom air. He shifted, pulsed again, she clasped, and her breath hitched, and her head swam, and she realized there was no way in heaven nor hell that she would leave this bedroom the same person.

Fuck.

But oh—there—he was _there_. She stilled when she felt the silky head of his member press at her entrance. The softest touch, hardly real, yet Narcissa's body reacted as if he'd lashed her with a live wire. Her legs slid up a little, reflexively, falling just slightly to the sides, and that agonizing point of contact between them became the center of the universe.

Unwillingly she looked at the mirror again, at the debauched bodies lying poised before the race. A scene in which Hermione Granger had absolutely no part. She focused on the hard lines of muscle in Lucius' back, shifting and flexing as he spared her some of his weight; her eyes slid down just as he flexed the muscles in his rear and nudged her, nearly pushing inside her and _oh god it had been so fucking close_—she slammed her eyes shut and imagined something different, a desperate pretend scene wherein Lucius was actually poised above _her_ and not Narcissa; she gasped as the image flashed in her head, of her own body and her own self pinned down beneath him; her back arched up off the bed and she drew her legs around his hips, trying with all her might to pull him in, but he resisted.

Lucius' hands withdrew from her wrists. When she tried to move them, she found she was somehow still restrained. She opened her eyes again and saw that somehow—likely a spell—she was now pinned down to the bed by thin black ties around her wrists and ankles.

"You _are_ an intoxicating little thing," Lucius purred. He slid off her, drawing back onto his haunches, looking down at her with an expression that immediately turned her boiling blood to ice. "But so outrageously incautious." He flicked his wand again, and a small glass phial, about the size of her little finger, appeared spinning in the air at his temple. He caught it and examined its contents. "The one thing Narcissa hates more than Clements Piotrowski is ceviche." He looked into her eyes, and Hermione had the sensation of falling into a bottomless pit. "We honeymooned in Lucerne. Had I brought Narcissa to this place for the weekend, I imagine she would be quite distressed. There is a different significance to this house in our marriage, you see." She felt the tip of his wand trace a soft line from the juttering pulse-point on her neck down to about an inch below her navel, where her heart had sunk and settled in a quivering mass. "So who, then, are you?"

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN****: I have no idea about you guys but I'm having a fucking blast.  
>What is Lucius gonna do to her? Does he really not know who she is? What do you all think?<br>Thank you so much for your feedback so far, oh my god it's amazing to read, really inspiring.  
>Some details will make more sense later on, but tell me—are my chapters getting too long?<br>Reviews keep this naïve young dream alive!**


	10. Chapter 10

Hermione couldn't breathe. The room was airless, frozen, so cold she felt goosebumps rising on her skin. Her breath hitched when Lucius raised his wand again, but he only flicked it and reclothed them. Well, reclothed himself, anyway. Hermione's dress didn't reappear: instead she found herself in an unfamiliar, knee-length pink nightgown and knickers. The tiny fragment of her mind that was still coherent found itself surprised at his deference here, now, in this situation—though obviously he'd chosen the nightgown to keep her feeling vulnerable. As if she didn't feel vulnerable enough tied down to the bed beneath him.

She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want to be alive just then. She kept her eyes on the wall and did her best to bear the hot, sticky shame currently filling her up from toes to crown; her eyes stung but she fought the tears. It was obvious Lucius was waiting for her to say something, and if she'd learned anything about him—and she seriously doubted now that she actually had—he was perfectly comfortable sitting in silence until she broke.

And break she finally did. Her voice came out thick and cracked. "How long did you know?"

"After you left the first day," he said conversationally. "I will confess that I was initially taken by your ruse, not because you were at all good at impersonating Narcissa, but because I believed that surely it was impossible that _anyone_ would try something so remarkably stupid." He paused. "I will also admit to indulging in a little wishful thinking. Perhaps Narcissa _had_ actually returned, but had changed so much that I no longer recognized her?" Those cold eyes narrowed. "Goodness, you now have such terrible blackmail material on me! Who would have thought that I was a human being, in possession of _feelings_, with the capacity to want for human contact, and yes, that I'm the sort of man to miss my ex-wife and wish her back badly enough that I was willing to go against my better judgment and show deference to an imposter. I have been caught out. Congratulations."

His words were hard ice and Hermione found herself choking back rattling sobs. He paused a moment, seemingly to reign in his anger, then went on.

"After you left, I found both Belgium and Fairway had been Confounded, and Francis informed me that you took quite a long time to locate the bedroom that had once been yours for several decades; he was, and is, concerned that you may have a brain injury. I also discovered that the hairbrush out of Narcissa's old vanity was gone. Rather a useful item, if one were brewing Polyjuice."

Hermione swallowed hard. She groped around for something to say, but the first words she heard herself speak surprised even her. "Ex-wife?"

Apparently he hadn't been expecting that, either. His eyebrows quirked up a little, but he remained silent, looking at her as if he couldn't quite believe anyone could be so stupid.

Hermione swallowed again; tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes. It really made no difference, Lucius' marital status, but somehow the knowledge that he and Narcissa were well and truly divorced had a distinct, and totally insane, impact on her: she felt a small sense of relief. Well, she'd done everything completely wrong and was still a fucked up person, fundamentally, but at least she hadn't fooled around with a married man. What a fucking terrific silver lining that was.

Lucius was still staring at her. It didn't seem wise to let him dwell on her idiocy; she decided that if she could keep him talking, she'd bide herself enough time to think up a plan to escape this with her life.

"You didn't seem to know I wasn't her when I showed up at your house the second time," she forced out. "You even asked a security question. Why did you play along?"

He smiled softly at her. "Why not? I was curious. I wanted to see if I could guess who you were and what you wanted—and in order to do that, I had to make you feel comfortable in your camouflage. Comfortable enough to slip me tidbits of information. So I played a little game of pretend, and you certainly _did _get comfortable." His eyes slipped down Narcissa's body, just for a second, but it was enough to make Hermione's humiliation skyrocket. She writhed, trying to get out of her confines, though she had no idea what she'd do if she actually got a hand loose: Lucius was sitting across her hips, a solid mass of muscle pinning her to the mattress, and his wand was already drawn. She was finished.

And when he leaned over, put a hand on her collarbone and pushed her down, hard, into the duvet, all escape attempts ceased immediately.

He went on, his face much closer to hers than before. His pale eyes were mesmerizing; she couldn't decide what she saw in them. His voice was still so soft, almost a caress, terrifyingly calm. A part of her knew he was relishing this, enjoying his power over her, and that part of her quivered with a barrage of confusing emotions.

"Anyway," he purred, "it was worth it to watch your impression of Narcissa. Hilarious. Piotrowski! She hates him nearly as much as she loves his wife's books—of which, by the way, _Tired Ramparts_ is her favorite. She only abided Clements' concerts in the hopes she'd glimpse Emilia and persuade her to sign a book. She loved Emilia even more than Austen. Clever guess, by the way, but incorrect insofar as I know. Still, it had me thinking for a while that you might actually be acquainted with Narcissa. I can now be certain you probably have never even spoken to her, which invalidates the possibility of you being one of her friends playing games with me. That leaves us two likely options." He twirled the vial between his fingers; its blue contents formed a tiny vortex. "You are either working for my manufacturers, or you are some self-righteous rogue from the Ministry."

Another wave of tears sprang free, running hot over her temples, but Hermione kept decent control over her voice. "You don't know who I am?"

"No," he drawled, his eyes following the droplets now soaking into Narcissa's fair hairline. "Not specifically. But let me see if I might narrow it down." He smiled indulgently at her, and she coughed out a sad whimper. "You are definitely a woman."

"What makes you so sure?" she dared, still trying to keep him talking, still trying to find some way, _any_ way, out of this hole she'd dug so very deeply around herself.

"I suppose you could be a man," he mused, "but I don't think so. You don't kiss like one."

"Wait—what?" she said, distracted for a moment. "You know how men kiss?"

"Yes," he said simply. "So, you are a woman. But from which institution? I don't believe you're with my colleagues, they would not have bothered asking about my work. I do believe, however, that that would be the obligation of a Ministry official." He smirked a little. "A Ministry official that allowed herself to get far too carried away with her vigilantism. I'm guessing you are also quite young. Mid-twenties, perhaps? Young enough to believe you are above the authority of the legal system, and to have absolutely no knowledge of the dynamics of mature marriages. I get the feeling that catfishing me is the first, truly awful thing you have done in your life—you broke so easily there. No back-and-forth at all. My, my, but this is quite a bad day for you…"

Hermione choked out a little sob. "I—I didn't—you should be in prison. You confessed you were involved in the Dark market."

"Even if it were true, it is information that you cannot use against me, considering both the illegal methods you used to obtain it, as well as your current position—pinned underneath me with little chance of leaving this house unless I agree to it. I assume you haven't worked out the address to this place, let alone sent it off to any potential rescuers. So liberation by an outside source seems rather slim on the ground for you—that is, if you've even told anyone you were planning to meet me today?"

The look on Hermione's face was sufficient enough answer. Lucius _tsk_ed. "You really shouldn't brave strange waters alone." He smiled ironically. "So, here we have a young Ministry official of the female persuasion, a lover of books and music but not, I take it, of Quidditch? I don't think you were bluffing earlier." He raised his eyebrows at her, but when she gave no conformation his smile only deepened. "All of this is hardly something from which I could draw a name. Let us find out for certain, shall we?" He showed her the bottle. "I am going to give this to you. It's an antidote for Polyjuice. Once you have transformed back, we will have a discussion about what happens to you next."

_"No!" _Hermione struggled harder against the binds, twisted and tried to throw him off her. She couldn't let him figure out who she was. Nobody, not a single human being on this good green planet could _ever_ know about this. Ever. But Lucius was unmoved, a stoic statue, the hard pillars of his thighs locking her firmly in place.

"No?" Lucius drawled, quirking his eyebrows and making a show of thinking it over. "I suppose that is somewhat understandable. The antidote is supposed to be remarkably painful, rather more so than Polyjuice itself. Perhaps you would want to lie there and wait for it to wear off on its own? I only thought you'd want to get this over with as quickly as possible."

Awash in tears, Hermione could no longer make out his expression; everything was a colored blob with runny edges. "Just—just let me go. Please. I'll never bother you again, you won't ever hear from me for as long as I live."

"I won't ever know whether or not I hear from you again, if I let you go now," Lucius responded. "You could stroll up to me tomorrow and I'd be completely unaware. And I hardly think that's fair. _I'm_ the wronged one in this situation, why should I let you off with a warning?" His voice hardened again. "I doubt you would have let _me _off, had you found any evidence of wrongdoings."

"But I did!" she wailed nonsensically. "I _know _you're involve in the Dark market! You—you knew about the dragon eggs and the Doxie Dust! You knew those were being traded more than anything!"

"Anyone who purchases a newspaper could figure that out," he said shortly. "There's two or three Doxie overdoses a day—and that instance last week? A dozen dragon hatchlings confiscated from that old warlock's bathroom in Exeter? Come now. _Everyone_ knows about those chinks in the Ministry's armor."

Hermione rolled her head back, away from him, choking on her own tears. The sobs were coming freely now, because he was right. She hadn't even gathered enough evidence to convince _anyone_ of his involvement. It had all been for nothing.

Lucius was watching her fall apart with an interesting look on his face. Not that she could see it, with her eyes now as tightly shut as she could screw them. Eventually she heard him scoff and the substantial weight resting on her hips was lifted. She blinked her eyes open again and saw him standing at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind his back, gazing up at the large mirror above her.

"I did so want to fuck Narcissa here," he murmured, and she noticed that he looked coldly angry. Under the fury in his eyes Hermione thought she could see pain. It made her soul wither a little. "I wanted to fuck her _hard_, and I wanted you to watch us. I wanted to make you—the both of you—scream my name. I was so terribly close to following through, and my _God_ you were as well. It would have been good." A flicker of something else, something Hermione recognized as lust, darted across his face. For a second she felt herself squirm a little, and not in fear. "I hadn't anticipated being so taken by this. Of course, there would have been no way that you could have mimicked Narcissa perfectly enough to fool me, and I thought that I would be more amused than anything at your attempts." He smiled again, though the anger hadn't vanished. "Poor judgment on my part. I knew you were not Narcissa, but yet I was still pleasuring _her _body. And the way you moved, the _sounds _you made… I confess, I got a little carried away before I remembered that what we are doing is exceptionally cruel to her. _You_ may be dying to have me, but she is not. Otherwise she would have come back long ago and fucked me herself."

His eyes flicked down at Hermione. "I'm feeling mawkish," he sighed. "I don't particularly want to stand here and watch my former life partner morph into someone else." His lip curled a little. "Possibly someone hideous, in which case I'd prefer not to make the association. So I'll leave you here to think about what you've done, and in a few hours we'll convene again and… chat, about all this. I have a proposition for you that you will definitely want to hear."

Hermione was fairly certain she didn't want to hear him say anything to her ever again, but she was thankful that he was at least leaving her alone for a while: she couldn't remember the last time she'd had to sit through this level of verbal torture and was already exhausted and sweat-slicked. Polyjuice antidote was indeed painful to take, and the fact that he wasn't forcing it on her was… well, shocking. She hadn't dared hope for that level of mercy.

When he turned and swept out the door without another word, she felt Narcissa's whole body wilt with relief. But it didn't last long. She'd topped off on Polyjuice a few hours ago; she was certain she'd be good for a few hours more, but unless she could get a hold of her wand or escape these binds, a whole month's worth of Polyjuice wouldn't do her any good.

Twenty minutes of struggling only left her frustrated and raw on her wrists and ankles. The binds, she discovered, tightened when she pulled them. She tried biting through them, but that did about as much good as biting on steel chains. Half an hour later, and she was almost a the point of contemplating chewing off her own hand like a wild animal. They had spells to regrow limbs, after all—she could go without hers for awhile. It would undoubtedly be less painful than Lucius Malfoy discovering her identity.

She went as far as to test-bite herself once before she canned that bright idea. A long stretch of time passed, she wasn't sure about the specifics; she struggled herself to exhaustion every ten minutes or so. Things got a little fuzzy and she might've passed out at some point, it was difficult to say. All she knew was that at one point her eyes snapped open and she was staring at Narcissa in the ceiling mirror, only Narcissa's hair was rapidly getting darker and curlier.

Oh shit. The Polyjuice was finally wearing off.

In the overwhelming panic that took hold in the next few seconds, an idea struck her. She screamed, "Francis!" and then, when there was no response, "Harriot!" Still no response. Not entirely unexpected. She mentally steeled herself before playing her last card. "Fergus!"

There was a _snap_ and Fergus appeared at her bedside; his back was to her, but he turned around as soon as he appeared and regarded her in that haughty, un-Elfish way of his. He did not look at all surprised to see her strapped to the bed with tears in her eyes, sporting an entirely new hairdo and a faint patch of rapidly blooming freckles across her nose. And that was deeply disturbing.

"Fergus," she breathed. "Please—help me. Lucius has gone insane. Please untie me!"

Fergus raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't look as though I ought to be butting into this situation, Mrs. Malfoy." He tilted his head. "Have you forgotten your safe-word?"

Hermione stifled a sob. "No, no, this isn't—Lucius has been gone for hours, he's left me here! Please let me go, I've been tied down here all night!"

The elf was unfazed. "Yes, from what I've had to witness before, these things can last that long." His eyes tracked the progress of her hair, which was now so massive that Hermione could almost call it her own again. "I never knew you dyed and straightened your hair."

"I—" It struck Hermione then that Fergus was being sarcastic. He must've known what was going on. No point in beating around the bush, she supposed. "Okay, Fergus, all right, I'm not Narcissa, I've been using Polyjuice, but please help me, I can't be found like this, Malfoy is going to come back and kill me—"

"I believe he said he had a proposition for you," Fergus corrected. "And he did not look the least bit murderous when I brought him his nightcap and beat him at chess earlier."

At this point Hermione's body was completely her own again under the nightdress, and Narcissa's face had begun to change in earnest; a few more seconds, and the last bit of her disguise was wicked away. Hermione Granger looked down at herself from the mirror with an expression appropriate to witnessing Voldemort rise again.

At last, Fergus revealed the tiniest ounce of shock. "Well, well, well," he said, padding up to the side of the bed and gazing at her with his little mouth hanging slightly open, "_Hermione Granger_. You were the very last person I would have ever suspected. Honestly. I put money on Lucius' old secretary." He slicked back his ears, thoughtful. "I suppose it isn't technically a loss, since I don't have any money, but still, the principle…"

"Fergus!" Hermione gasped out; she was sobbing wholeheartedly, her crime now witnessed, her humiliation complete. "Please, _please_ help me—I've—I've dedicated my life to helping house-elves, I've devoted years to improving your standing in society, I can't be brought down like this, all of the work I've done for you will get buried under this scandal! Please, you can't let that happen!"

It was a long shot, considering Francis' and Harriot's earlier sentiments about SEX, but Hermione figured there'd be little she could lose in trying.

Fergus was looking at her steadily. He looked at her for so long that she turned away from him, giving him up as a lost cause, burying her face in a nearby pillow and crying hear heart out. Her career was over. Lucius would take this to the press, and everyone would know her shame. Her friends would shun her. There'd be a criminal trial and she'd likely do jail time. Perhaps her war heroine status might fetch her a lighter sentence, and she'd only have to do community service. Hermione Jane Granger, picking up garbage at the roadside in a striped jumpsuit…

She paused in her wailing only to rub her knuckles into her eyes—and realized then that her hand was no longer bound. She sat bolt upright and looked down at herself. The black ties were gone, and Fergus was standing there in the center of the room, twirling her wand between his long fingers. He tossed it to her, and she was so shocked that her grab for it was a second too late; it struck her in the face and tumbled into her lap.

"You won't be able to apparate here," he said, extending a hand, "but I can take you. Just give me an address."

Hermione snatched up her wand, scrambled off the bed and dove for his hand, clutching it so hard that he winced a little. She managed to yammer out the address of her favorite café in wizarding London; even in her state of high terror she didn't want to chance Lucius figuring out exactly where she lived.

Fergus snapped, and Hermione swore the pressure of apparation had never felt sweeter.

* * *

><p>They made a bit of a scene at the café when Hermione appeared on a tabletop right in the middle of the establishment, wearing nothing but her tiny pink nightgown and clutching at a house-elf like a little girl clinging to her teddy. Thank God there were only a few people around, most of them employees: dawn was breaking softly in the east, but all the street-lamps were still on outside. Hermione supposed she shouldn't have chosen an all-night place but it was the first she could think of under all that pressure.<p>

Fergus wriggled and made an angry noise in the back of his throat, and she immediately put him down and jumped off the table.

"Oh my god, Fergus, thank you," Hermione gasped, reaching out for him again and pulling him into a crushing hug. She cried a little on his shoulder—it was mostly out of relief but she drew back when she heard his disapproving sniff.

He glared at her and started daubing the little wet patch on the shoulder of his gold pillowcase with a napkin. "I don't know if you understand the predica—"

"What's going on here?" A barista had appeared, looking between Hermione and Fergus with a completely bewildered expression on her face. "Hermione Granger? Is that you?"

Hermione went brilliant red. "I—we—sorry, we got a little disoriented," she said, and then quickly added to Fergus, "I've got to go. I really can't express how grateful I am. Thank you so much."

Hermione apparated a second time, but not before she caught Fergus' forbidding expression, saw him grab for her and miss. While floating in the crushing darkness she felt a little pang of guilt, but she couldn't have stayed in the café for a protracted conversation and made an even bigger scene: Lucius would soon discover the elf's treason and would come looking for them, and the less he knew about her whereabouts, the better.

It was a little sad that she probably couldn't show her face in that café again. They had delicious lattes. But she supposed it was a small price to pay to maintain some anonymity.

She rematerialized in the middle of her own living room, and immediately fell down on the carpet and cried until she was too exhausted to cry anymore. Crookshanks came tottering over on his unsteady old-man legs and rubbed against her head as she let it all out; she didn't even mind when he farted on her and walked away again. She was so relieved to be out of Shorecliff and back in her own apartment. For awhile there it didn't look as if she'd ever see it again.

She thought about just passing out right there, but her sense of propriety, somehow undamaged by the events of the last few days, wouldn't allow it. She pulled her leaden body up and staggered into the kitchen, grabbing things at random, trying to make her brain remember how to brew the herbal tea she drank whenever she was struggling to put herself to sleep. She'd throw off the nightgown and knickers, probably take a shower, and go to bed naked tonight; she didn't want any reminders of the past twenty-four hours on her. She prayed to God that she'd be able to sleep for longer than just a few hours. The longer she could avoid thinking about what happened, the better off she'd be.

She'd just filled the kettle when she heard the crack of apparation in her living room.

Without pausing to think, she dove at the nearest cabinet and crawled inside; a large, precariously piled heap of crockery crashed down around her, but she got the door closed before any of it could spill onto the linoleum. Wand in hand, she crouched there in the dark, straining her ears for the tiniest sound in the next room.

She didn't have to wait long. In a few seconds her cabinet door was flung open again, and she rolled out, waving her wand around and screaming, _"Petrificus totalus!" _while the pots and pans thundered around her.

To her alarm, the spell immediately took effect—on _her_. The intruder must've repelled it, but if he had, that had been the quickest nonverbal spellwork she'd ever witnessed. She thudded into the floor, frozen mid-jump, her wand held aloft. There was an explosion of hysterical laughter behind her.

_"Oh my god,"_ Fergus gasped between fits. Despite his humanized voice, his laugh was still quite squeaky. "You're such a _card!"_

Hermione felt another twang of embarrassment. "Fergus! How did you find me?"

"Elves have a special knack for finding things that are lost," he said. She heard him sniff and wipe his eyes, still chuckling weakly. "I've got to say, it was very rude of you to leave me there, but _this_—this has made up for it. I forgive you."

"How'd you do that _Protego _so fast?" Hermione grumbled.

Fergus spiraled back into a fit of mirth. It was awhile before he could get the words out. "You've got a ladle caught on your wand-tip," he coughed, pointing. "It must have deflected your spell right back at your hand."

Hermione's eyes darted up. Oh. He was right. She felt a new wave of embarrassment coming on, but at this point, in the safety of her own home, she managed to whip up a little defensive anger too. "Well, I was startled, all right! Now could you please unfreeze me?"

Fergus snorted. "Not if you're going to apparate away again. You and I have things to talk about and I can't have you running off before we're sorted."

Hermione clicked her tongue impatiently. "Where would I go? This is my home. I can't go wandering the streets in a nightgown, you saw the way those people in the café looked at me!"

"Give me your word that you won't run off, and I'll unfreeze you."

She groaned. _"Fine._ I give you my word. Now let me up!"

Hermione felt her muscles relax and pushed herself into a sitting position. Fergus padded up to her, reached out, and rapped his knuckles smartly on the top of her head. A metallic _clang _sounded.

"Is this what the kids are wearing nowadays?" he said, smirking. "Saucepans for hats?"

Hermione yanked the crockery off her head, blushing angrily, but Fergus wasn't paying much attention anymore; he was gazing around her kitchen now with a look of distinct disgust on his face. "My god, do you ever clean this place?"

"I—I don't really—" Hermione couldn't get the words out before the elf went bustling around, tidying the mess of cookware she'd scattered, reorganizing the cabinet she'd fallen out of, putting on the tea she'd tried to make and, for good measure, waving a finger and setting her underused broom to sweeping on its own. He got the dishes started too, and seemed to have to restrain himself from grabbing a dishtowel and wiping down her counters. The sight of her minimally cluttered and dusty living space seemed to cause him physical pain.

While she was still spluttering, he took the hem of her nightgown and apparated them back into the living room. He pushed her down onto the couch then sat across from her in the loveseat; even though the furniture dwarfed him, he still somehow managed to look grave and intimidating, like a wizened little judge holding court on his bench.

Hermione found her words. "Are you going to tell Malfoy where I am?"

Fergus made an impatient noise. "Would I have bothered to rescue you if I was going to do so?" He bent his eyes on her in a manner reminiscent of Lucius; Hermione had little doubt now that the elf must've had something to do with the man's upbringing. "You're a very lucky woman. My relationship with the Malfoy family is not typical among elves; my contract is possibly unique. No other elf would have been able to do what I did today. It was clearly an act against my master's wishes." He steepled his long fingers. "I therefore think you owe me an explanation of your behavior."

"I was impersonating Narcissa to see if Malfoy's been spearheading a Dark market enterprise," Hermione said without hesitation. "I was just going to wait for him to drop a name or an address I could look up later, but then all the… other stuff started happening." She flushed at Fergus' knowing smile and changed the subject. "Why were you able to rescue me today?" She thought of Dobby. "The only other elf I'd met of the Malfoys' aside from Francis and Harriot wasn't able to act against their wishes without punishing himself."

Fergus balked a little but he gave her a prompt response. "Some centuries ago, when the Malfoy empire hit a high in its status and grandeur, Nicodemus Malfoy, the patriarch at the time, took me aside for a private chat. Now that the Malfoys had attained greatness, he said it was tantamount that we retained our power through the centuries by removing as much outside influence as possible, to reduce the chances of breeding blood-traitors, progressivists, or any other such riff-raff in the family line. He thought that having a steady… keeper of the house, as he called it, would benefit the family enormously. But he needed someone that could be trusted implicitly, who could also withstand the wear and tear of time. And who more suitable than an elf, unable to disobey even if he wanted to?

"He gave me several orders that he instructed me to follow even after his passing. He told me that I was to become the head servant and maintain the other elves and properties, so that they didn't fall into disrepair or dishonor; educate myself to act as a tutor of the Malfoy scions, to avoid a constant parade of teachers through the generations that may potentially poison their minds; and most importantly, I was not allowed to die unless instructed otherwise. I would also be a warden of the family history and genealogy, the details of which I should only divulge to the patriarch should he ask. Such things are kept close in pureblood society."

He scratched his chin. "Being head-elf resulted in my forming personal relationships with all the Malfoy heirs. Over the years I've learned, and taught, healing, finance, dueling, basket weaving, hunting, flag semaphore, hairstyling and how to play just about every instrument known to mankind." He smiled grimly. "But I have Aristide Malfoy to thank for the most important of my abilities. Aristide and I were quite close, and until Lucius, he was my favorite. He always had some difficulty with social interaction, but I could understand him, after a fashion. He died quite young, but last request of me—that I should never fear the family, and that I must never harm myself and that I must even defend myself against my masters, should it come to it—has lent me a considerable amount of freedom. His successor, Hadrian, made the suggestion that I should also speak my mind without fear of retribution. I soon grew into the role of an unofficial, off-the-records adviser. I am allowed to say whatever I want and to protect myself should I need to. That's why, at this very moment, even though I can hear Lucius calling for me, I am allowed to ignore him because it falls under the context of 'self-defense.' There have been _years_ when I have had to lay low and avoid the patriarch because I have said something off-color."

He cocked his head at her calendar hanging on her wall near the clock. This month's picture was a pink kneazle. "I imagine this will have to be one of those quiet spells." He sighed. "It really is too bad. I love Lucius and I'm rather upset our relationship had to take this turn."

Hermione gawped at the elf. Her head swum with all the information. "Wow," she said at last. "You—er—look pretty good for being a few centuries old."

He flashed a coy grin. "Every once in awhile I get an order to be young again, so I am."

"That's incredible! I've worked with elves for _years _and I've never met one even remotely like you!" She frowned. "Is that why you rescued me, because of the Society for Elfish Exoneration? Francis and Harriot weren't fans."

Fergus sniffed. "Nor am I. But I didn't rescue you because I appreciated your _SEX _group, although I won't complain too loudly: I've learned to speak like a human now, and I've seen a remarkable improvement in how the family treats me because of it, Draco in particular. No, I saved you to in turn ask a favor. Now that you're in my debt, I imagine you'll be more than happy to humor an old elf."

Hermione blinked. And then burst out laughing. "No wonder all the Malfoys have ended up in Slytherin. With a tutor-come-adviser like you it's a shock there's any variation at all between generations."

"That was the point, I believe."

"What's the favor?"

He immediately became serious. "Some years ago, you were brought to the manse against your will. You were tortured there. I'm sure you remember."

Hermione froze. "Yes, I remember that."

"You were rescued by an elf. One that used to belong to the Malfoy family."

"Yes. Dobby."

His eyebrows pursed. "So far as I am aware, you and your companions were the last to hear from Dobby. I want you to take me to him."

Hermione's heart sank like a two-ton rock. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Fergus. Dobby—he died that same night we escaped."

Fergus stared at her for a long moment. "What happened?"

"Bellatrix killed him. She threw a knife, and it—it got him," Hermione said lamely. "Harry dug a grave. We had a small ceremony."

Fergus grew still. After another long moment, he drew himself up. "Damn that woman," he murmured. "Well, my request still stands. Take me to the place where he was buried."

* * *

><p>Hermione didn't bother knocking on Bill and Fleur's front door. It was about 6 o'clock in the morning and the whole family would probably still be sleeping. Anyway, she didn't want to have to explain the solemn old elf at her ankle, nor why she was leading him to Dobby's grave at this ungodly hour. It wouldn't do any harm if she just snuck him in for a quick… whatever it was he was going to do. Then she'd just hurry him out again and nobody would be any the wiser.<p>

Hermione wasn't sure when she'd become such a secretive person, but she made a mental note to stop while she was ahead.

Fergus had wanted to set out for the grave immediately, and it was only after a protracted argument that he allowed her to shower and dress. She could hear him crashing around her flat while she scrubbed off at top-speed; when she darted back across the hall to her room in a towel, she caught a glimpse of him carrying her sofa cushions into the kitchen.

Disturbed, she raced through her routine and came out just in time to find her whole apartment looking better than she'd ever seen it. She wandered around, openmouthed, until she stumbled across the elf sitting cross-legged beside her coffee table drinking tea and glancing impatiently at his fancy watch. Crookshanks was sulking in the window looking as if he'd been the unwilling recipient of a few cleansing charms.

"Fergus," she breathed, "this place… you _really_ didn't have to—"

"I certainly did not," he cut her off. "Are you quite done? I'm eager to be off."

Hermione started. "Right," she said. He put down his tea and waved a hand at the cup; it vanished. Then he offered a hand to her.

* * *

><p>Over the years the wind off the sea had smoothed over the mound of Dobby's grave. It was perfectly flat now, only distinguishable by the headstone and the small number of tributes piled around it.<p>

Hermione's most recent visit to the site had been nearly six months ago. She'd left a small bouquet of Everblooming Daisies and a short thank-you note tucked into the vase. The site wasn't loaded with candles or small gifts like the memorial of Hogwarts in Diagon Park, but it was still a hollowed place, especially for Harry. Unlike the name suggested, Hermione's daisies had wilted long ago, along with all of the other flowers around the stone. She felt suddenly ashamed that she'd let the grave go to seed.

Fergus walked slowly up to it. Feeling as if she were intruding upon something very private, Hermione tried to remove herself from the situation by paying far too much attention to a nearby shrub, but she'd barely turned her back on the scene when Fergus was at her elbow again, tugging on her coat and asking to leave.

* * *

><p>The arrival back at her flat couldn't have been more uncomfortable. Hermione wasn't sure what to say. Fergus was looking coolly unaffected, as if all they'd done was take a quick trip to the corner store; the instant they appeared back in her living room he bustled off to the kitchen and began brewing them each a cup of coffee.<p>

"It's morning now," he announced, handing Hermione a mug without any prompting. "The sun will rise soon. We might as well stay up. We've got to set up a few protective wards around this place; Lucius has stopped calling for me and I believe he's figured out what's happened. The only reason it's taken him this long is because if my hitherto-unwavering loyalty." Fergus grimaced a little. "He isn not going to be happy with me."

Hermione looked at him pityingly. "I really do appreciate everything you've done," she said, wishing to Merlin the words didn't sound so overused. "What are you going to do now?"

Fergus raised an eyebrow. "I've just told you," he said impatiently, "we're going to make this place a fortress. Lucius is a very talented wizard, whatever you think of him, and I don't doubt that he'll be able to determine who you are using the information you've let slip already. And once he does, he _will_ come looking for you."

Hermione's palms began to sweat. "Okay," she said, "but then what do I do now? I still have to go to work on Monday, and I still have to figure out whether or not Malfoy's involved with—" She stopped. "Wait. You would know if Lucius is working in the illegal substance trade, wouldn't you? You could give testimony!"

Fergus gave her a very cold look. "Despite what you may have witnessed tonight, I am not a bad elf, Hermione Granger," he said, raising a threatening finger. "It is a deeply insulting thing you are insinuating. I will not speak out against him on any sort of trumped-up charges you've created. How dare you even suggest it?" He drew himself up, smoothing down the front of his pillowcase. "No, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to remain here in this dreadful little space a few days, to be sure my efforts were not wasted and your anonymity is preserved. Then I'm going to return to the manor and keep my head down, keep everything running smoothly without showing my face, until Lucius needs me again. He will. It may be years, but he'll come around. And if he does not," Fergus grimaced, "Draco will. Or his son, or the son thereafter. And once I am back in their good graces, everything will be as it was. As it has always been."

Hermione scowled. "Well, then, that's just great. Never mind that lives are being lost and our Statute of Secrecy is being jeopardized because of the Dark market, and all of it could be prevented if we disbanded it." Then she let out a pitiful sigh. "I can't _believe_ I went through all that for nothing."

Fergus raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seriously think your little plan would work, did you?" He grew solemn. "On an unrelated note, I'd be very cautious about returning to work, if I were you."

"What? You're not suggesting I _play hookie_ or—"

Fergus scoffed. "No, that would be a good way of drawing unwanted attention to yourself. Act as if nothing has happened, but for God's sake, _be careful _while you do it. I pulled you out of the lion's den once, but I'm not willing to do it again. There's only so much damage I can do per decade before my reputation goes completely to the dogs." He raised his finger again, looking severe. "Mark my words, Lucius _will _eventually find out who you are, and I don't think he'll be so kind to you when you're under his control again."

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN****: Soooo sorry for this incredibly late update. December was a very hard month for me :c Even though this isn't as severe a cliffhanger, would it titillate you to know that Lucius doesn't stay gone for very long at all? c; **

**_Please drop me a line!_ It helps with the creative juices.  
><strong>


	11. Chapter 11

Hermione would've liked to say she'd spent all Sunday helping with the fortification of her apartment, but really she'd spent most it keeping herself and Crookshanks away from Fergus.

At first she'd wanted to chat with him, find out a little more about him and Dobby. It rapidly became apparent that the feeling wasn't mutual.

It didn't take long for Fergus to really come out of his shell, and as soon as he did, Hermione wanted to shove him right back in again. He was a million times worse than Kreacher used to be. Her first impression of him hadn't necessarily been good, but she soon realized she'd vastly underestimated him. Though he did an excellent job of avoiding direct insults, by the end of the day, she was feeling worse about her situation than she had in years. He deflected all attempts at civil conversation and when he wasn't cleaning or casting every protective spell known to man _and _elf over her home, he was making subtly—and sometimes openly—disdainful comments about every aspect of her life.

Her favorites were, as follows:

"I'm not naming any names, but whoever is continuing to keep this dreadful stinking hairball of a cat alive should be incarcerated."

"It looks as if a hundred generations of dirty people have been breeding on your carpets."

"Did you hire a blind interior decorator?"

"There appears to be a drawer in your bedroom full of some old woman's bloomers. Does your grandmother visit often? Shall I have them all mailed back to her, or burned?"

"You know, tableware _does _come in styles that aren't nearly so ugly."

"It sounds as if you're rising rather slowly in the Ministry. Have you been unable to impress anyone? Would you like me to hem your skirts a little shorter?"

The odd thing was, no matter how she raged back at him, he seemed to find her retorts amusing. She tried avoiding him, but her home wasn't that large and he was doing a fine job of discreetly following her around. When she dared ask what he'd done with her sofa cushions (because the ones now decorating her couch were much nicer), he'd announced that he'd shrunk them, ran them through the garbage disposal, and replaced them with a few from the Malfoys' storage. The covers on her old ones had been a handmade gift from her mother.

"I can have new ones purchased for the Malfoy family and returned to storage later," he assured her while straightening the portraits on the bookshelf, seeming not to notice her standing very close behind him, seething and red-faced and clutching a wooden spoon like a Beater's bat. "What I cannot purchase is a new memory of sitting on your abominable couch for the first time."

She noticed how he subtly positioned every picture that included Ron behind another, blocking Ron from view. The picture of him and Hermione kissing in front of the lion exhibit at the Bristol Zoo, which Hermione had completely forgotten about, lay face-down under a pile of books Fergus had stacked on it in alphabetical order. She didn't have time to question this odd behavior, because at that moment Fergus started to push the litterbox out the window with Crookshanks still in it, and that required her full attention.

The little elf avoided the microwave and the television, as well as all other overtly electrical implements in Hermione's apartment. He didn't even deign to wipe the thick layer of dust off her stereo, though he certainly didn't spare it any dirty looks. As night fell and Hermione started switching on the lights, she found them mysteriously burning out behind her, replaced with her emergency candlesticks. She caught Fergus lighting the last of them in her bedroom.

She admit she lost her cool a little.

"Those are for power outages," she snarled at him. "The electric lights work just fine. You've broken all my bulbs, you little shit, even the fucking spares!"

"Electric lights are the foulest of all Muggle inventions," he announced. "They are noisy and cast an ugly stale light, and the long rectangular one in the kitchen _blinks_. I nearly had an epileptic spell watching it."

"The blinking isn't that bad, and I was planning on replacing the bulb when it went out on its own! It was still working fine! And what do you mean, they're noisy?"

"I can hear them," he said, his large ears quivering indignantly. "It is a heinous and offensive noise. Your ridiculous Muggle boxes were also buzzing incessantly, that is why I have pulled all of their tails out of the walls, and killed the—what did you call them? Bulbs?" He sniffed haughtily. "I can still hear the humming in the walls, where the Muggles have hidden the wires that feed all your devices, but it is a bearable din. These candles will do for now, but I'd recommend investing in a set that hasn't been scraped out of a bargain bin. You will have to purchase more tomorrow when you brave the outside world." He paused. "It will be dangerous out there. Lucius might have worked out your identity by now. He might even be waiting for you tomorrow. I shudder to think of what he will do to you… _if only _you had some backup… someone to keep an eye on things, make sure you don't get killed…"

Hermione ignored the barbs: there were too many to contend with, and she'd had all day to fume at him without results (she felt a hundred times more sympathetic for Draco and even Lucius now). She gritted her teeth and breathed deep. Notwithstanding her current feelings, now wasn't the time to turn away help: her fear of Lucius outweighed her budding hatred for his butler. "Well then, will you come with me tomorrow as backup?"

Fergus raised an eyebrow. "Is that a serious request?"

"Er, yes."

He rolled his eyes. "Well then, voice it like a command."

"What—?"

"I cannot follow requests unless they are given as commands."

"Oh. Okay then." She coughed and said, in an awkward wooden voice, "Fergus, I command that you accompany me to the Ministry tomorrow as backup."

"No."

His face split into a wide grin at her incredulous expression. "Ah, I've wanted to do that all day. You really know nothing of elves, do you? How unfortunate that such an ignorant person is our mouthpiece to the wizarding world. I am sorry, Hermione Granger, but you are no master of mine, and as such I do not take orders from you. I deigned to bend the rules while you were under the Polyjuice, but not now." He glanced at his watch. "Since you've insisted, however, I'll tag along using the _free will_ your radical political group has foisted on us elves. But first let me whip up a Disillusionment Tonic. It works better and lasts longer than the spell. Where is your cauldron?"

Hermione glared at him. "Under the sink."

"Very well, I shall set to work. Please do not disturb me for the rest of the evening."

_As if I'd voluntarily talk to you_, she thought, but settled for flipping him off behind his back.

* * *

><p>Hermione didn't see Fergus again until seven o'clock the following morning. She was feeling remarkably positive towards him today: she'd gotten a decent enough night's sleep that had dulled all the raw nerves, and besides, she had a notorious soft spot for elves. She decided to forgive him for all the nasty things he'd said. After all, he'd been the Malfoys' elf for centuries, what had she expected?<p>

She found him balanced on a stool in front of her stove, dusting pepper over a few fried eggs and tomatoes. One burner over, bacon and sausages were sizzling, and he even had bread toasting manually right on the flames. Nearby, the kettle was whining and a few oranges were squeezing themselves into a glass.

"Please, do sit down," Fergus said without turning. He waved a hand; the food arranged itself artfully on a plate, and it, along with the juice, a mug of tea, and all the fixings soared gracefully onto the table. "I was confronted with a bit of a challenge this morning. Your storeroom is poorly stocked, as well as your…" he scowled disapprovingly, _"refrigerator, _which I was forced to touch. I had to duck back home and borrow some supplies. I only just avoided Francis."

"Sorry," Hermione said, sitting at the table. "I don't eat breakfast most days. I'm fine with just a coffee on the way to work. But thank you for making me this, it looks amazing." She managed a smile.

He sniffed. "Only layabouts skip breakfast," he chided, "and it is astonishing to me that you have reached such a… mature age without learning to cook it for yourself."

Hermione's smile slid off her face. Well, so much for that. "Actually, I _can_ cook. I wasn't the best at it until I moved in with… until a few years ago. Now I think I'm quite good, but like I said, breakfast isn't my thing, I usually only make lunch and dinner—"

"Breakfast," Fergus cut her off, "is the _most _important meal of the day, and the most delicious. What if this frail Muggle building were to collapse and trap you in this miniscule flat"—Hermione rolled her eyes—"and all you had to rely on for a morning meal from now until a horrific early death were _sandwich fixings?"_

Hermione blew a strand of hair out of her face. She'd never had to deal with someone this sarcastic since perhaps Professor Snape back at Hogwarts. "Well, thanks very much for looking out for me."

"You know, I could teach you to cook," he said, a condescending lilt in his voice. He ignored Hermione's repeated snarl of "I already _can!"_ and went on, "I try to teach the Malfoy children to fend for themselves in the kitchen, so if God forbid things really went downhill for the family, they'd be able to manage, but in this area I fear you'd be nearly as hopeless as Draco. I desisted with him after a single lesson." He paused. "On the other hand, Lucius is an excellent chef."

Hermione—who was grudgingly enjoying her breakfast—looked up from her plate, surprised. "He is?"

"Possibly the best of the lot," Fergus nodded, looking askance at her. "Admittedly he doesn't care for it much, he lets us elves do our jobs, but then, Lucius tends to master things quite easily regardless of his interest level." When Hermione met his eyes, he turned away, speaking casually to her cooktop. "I perused your bedside bookshelf while you were sleeping and I couldn't help but notice the two of you have nearly the same personal collection."

Hermione flushed (not only because Fergus had been in her room when she was _sleeping_ for Christ's sake) and went back to her plate. "Oh really?" she said, mimicking his nonchalance.

He came to sit across from her with his own breakfast: a single egg and strip of bacon. "Yes," he said, laying a napkin in his lap (with a reproving look at Hermione, whose napkin was still pinned under her butter knife). "Forgive me, but while I was cleaning all the dirty fingerprints off said bookcase, I saw a picture of you at the ribbon-cutting of the Liverpool Preschool for Young Wizards and Witches." He chewed a bite of egg. "Lucius oversaw that project."

Hermione was stunned. "Malfoy was involved with that? But I didn't see his name on any of the paperwork, or at the opening ceremony."

"Oh, I assure you, he was there. You are not the only one who knows how to brew Polyjuice. He has to conduct these sorts of things anonymously now, since the family name is poison, but he covered nearly all of the building costs and did all the accounting work. He is exceptional with numbers. On paper he was _William Romine_, I'm sure you'll have read that name_._" Fergus smirked when Hermione paled. "Actually, he asked me to draft one or two of the curriculums, since I have a _touch_ of experience with the pre-Hogwarts education of young witches and wizards. I understand a few of my syllabi are in use now."

Hermione was gawping. "You're kidding."

"No."

"But you're the first elf to contribute to wizardkind so directly! If you became a member of the Society for Elfish Exoneration and spoke at a rally or two, you could really inspire—"

"No," Fergus cut her off. "Elves are not here to be inspiring, nor to be inspired. I view your cause as a terribly misguided joke, and I would never participate."

Only years of hearing similar phrases from nearly everyone kept Hermione from losing her shit. Still, there was something particularly enraging about seeing such an educated, self-respecting elf like Fergus say it in his polished voice. She felt her anger hit a peak, and her voice warbled when she spoke.

"Well, Fergus, I'm really sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you think the way the Malfoys have treated you has been anything close to fair. I'm sorry you've deluded yourself into thinking they're your family and not slavers who have been taking advantage of you. And I'm sorry they've made you into such a despicable person. You've been terrible to me ever since we got here, and it stops now. I know what I did to Lucius was wrong, I know you care about him, and I'm grateful for your help, but that doesn't give you the right to—to _torture_ me like this." She set her fork down sharply, her breakfast half-eaten. "If you want to join me at the Ministry today as backup, you're still welcome to. If you want to run back to Lucius and tell him where I am, then good riddance. Either way I'm leaving in ten minutes." She retreated back to her room without seeing his reaction.

Hermione let herself seethe and throw pillows for a few minutes before allowing herself to regret her words. She felt drained and, now that her anger was ebbing, anxious. _He's going to be an even bigger pain in the arse now_, she thought miserably. _Or he's gone and rounded up Malfoy, and they're waiting for me by the front door._

She thought about sending an owl to Harry. Confessing to everything and pleading for his help. But she immediately rejected the idea. Lucius and Fergus had dirt on her that simply could not be allowed to surface; if either were apprehended, everything would come out.

Her only option was to face the music.

She turned around and screamed a little when she saw Fergus standing in her doorway, his ears laid back, his expression just skirting the edge of contrite. He cleared his throat. "Forgive my impertinence, Miss Granger," he said curtly. "I have been ornery. Please allow me to help you prepare for work."

Hermione hesitated, then softened. "I forgive you. Yes, you can help."

Five minutes later she sorely regretted it. While styling her hair, he asked, "Would you consider investing in a wig?" and then, while doing up her face: "I see you were being frugal when you purchased your makeup. It may benefit you to rethink that decision." Her favorite, though, came when he reviewed her outfit: "This blouse—you chose it because you've given up all hope of finding a husband, yes? My dear girl, a woman always has options. But not wearing that."

She may have been livid with him again had she not looked so stunning after he finished. He hadn't even used much makeup at all, just done a few things to her eyes and painted on a bit of lipstick and a little blush. Whatever he'd done, though, looked amazing. Really, she hadn't looked this good since Harry and Ginny's wedding years ago, and then it had taken her five hours to achieve it. Still, a few times she'd nearly turned into an elf-murderer, and she didn't want to think about the repercussions of that.

Fergus at last deemed her acceptable and went off to take his Disillusionment Tonic. He met her at the front door; she felt his hand grab her wrist, and he asked, "Where is your office?"

She frowned in confusion. "In the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Level 2, room 245. Why—?"

Before she could say another word, he apparated them directly there.

The room was empty. Lucius wasn't sitting there in her office chair, like she'd half-expected him to be. She didn't know how stressed she'd been until that point: it was like a brick had been taken out of her stomach.

"You could've warned me," she snapped at Fergus, though secretly she appreciated the convenience. Apparation for wizards into the Ministry was only achievable in the Atrium, he'd saved her a ride in the lift and lots of walking. Fergus did not respond, though she heard him patter away to a chair in the corner of her office, and saw the cushion depress when he sat.

Three hours of steady pencil-pushing later, and Hermione was feeling much more confident in her safety. Lucius hadn't come barging through her door yet; she imagined that even if he _had_ figured out her identity, he wouldn't dare try anything in the bowels of the Ministry, with the Auror office just down the hall. It was silly, really, that she'd been so afraid.

She was just drawing up a report about a wizard in Cornwall who'd broken his parole by selling a maliciously charmed pair of mustache clippers when Belby stepped in.

"Hermione!" She glanced up at him, and his steps faltered a little. He was quiet a moment, evidently trying to find his tongue. "What's the occasion?" he asked at last.

She stared at him, nonplussed. "What do you mean?"

"You look different. Is it somebody's birthday?"

She then remembered Fergus had fixed her up earlier. She flushed. "Oh, no. Nobody's birthday. I just decided to… do something different."

Belby was a professional, and accordingly he left the topic alone at that, but Hermione didn't miss the way his eyes lingered slightly longer on her than they used to, nor the fact that his cheeks were a little pinker than before. "Any headway on the Malfoy case?"

Hermione tensed, but forced herself to relax. Belby tended to ask her that every Monday morning. Brilliant way to start the week, really. "Nothing new yet, sorry. I've got Duke Rincon from Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes sending me his analysis of an explosion that occurred in one of the Malfoy apothecaries back in February. Maybe they had an erumpent horn. If so, we could charge them with holding and illegal substance with the intent to sell; that'd be enough to get a warrant to search all of their properties again, and maybe this time we'll find their stash. If it wasn't a horn, then maybe someone planted a bomb. If that's the case we could focus on tracking the bomber down, seeing why they're so disgruntled with the Malfoys. Maybe they have a few secrets to tell."

Belby's smile vanished. "Sounds like a long shot."

"We won't know until Rincon gets back to me."

Belby huffed. "Hermione, I've got a stack of reports on my desk that need addressing. Crimes related to Doxie Dust keep piling up and the supply isn't dropping off. This has got to stop. I _know _Lucius Malfoy is involved." He glanced at her report. "And I know you've had a tough few weeks trying to work this puzzle out, and you're discouraged. But I need you to refocus. You have a lot of sway in this department: people here respect you. Our superiors respect you. Any evidence, even the smallest piece, will be taken seriously."

Hermione gritted her teeth but did her best to look earnest. "I understand, Mr. Belby," she said. "I'll head straight to the DMAC right away and get the report from Rincon myself." She stood, and Belby looked mollified. Thankfully he didn't notice the transparent silhouette of an elf slip out the door behind them.

Fergus followed Hermione all the way to the DMAC and back. She found herself reassured by his presence; if anyone could save her from a random Lucius-generated attack, it was that damnable little elf. She could've done without him following her into the bathroom, though.

Back in her office, Hermione combed the report over twice. Turned out, the explosion that occurred on the Malfoy property was actually caused by a child mixing ingredients behind the counter while the clerk wasn't looking. Nobody had been hurt, thankfully, but that left Hermione with no other leads. Well, aside from the obvious.

"You know," Fergus said suddenly, making her jump, "I find the best way to brainstorm an issue is by taking a walk."

Hermione grit her teeth. "That's nice for you. But some of us work in offices, and are required to be present during working hours."

"It's no surprise you're single, really, no man could satisfy you after you've had such a huge stick lodged up your arse."

Hermione whirled and glowered at the empty-looking chair where Fergus sat. _"Oh my god, you son of a bitch! How dare—?"_

"I am merely proposing you take a break." She heard his feet hit the floor. "Come along, it's lunch hour for normal people now. We'll go to that new park they've put in Diagon and throw things at birds. It relaxes Draco; perhaps you have more in common with him than consistent fuck-ups."

"I don't _want _to go to the park!" Hermione snarled, remembering her impromptu meeting with Narcissa. Just thinking about the woman made Hermione's gut ache. "Shouldn't I be lying low?"

"It's the last place Lucius would be," Fergus insisted. "And anyway I'm dreadfully bored with spying on these hopeless Ministry twats. I will surely lose my mind if I must spend another minute here. By the way, you may want to report the lad down the hall, he masturbates at his desk." When she ignored him, one of the filing cabinets along the wall popped open. "Your filing system is sub-par," Fergus' voice announced. "I shall now rearrange everything for you."

Hermione slammed her quill down and jumped up. _"Fine, let's go to the park!"_

And without a single word more, Fergus gripped her wrist and snapped them away.

* * *

><p>Diagon Park was full to bursting today, much more active than the last time she visited. It must've been the unaccountably good weather. Hermione could feel Fergus keeping a hand on her calf as she stomped over to the closest stall selling edibles and ordered herself the least terrible thing on the menu. She tried to keep her mind on the Malfoy case but it was impossible. Fergus knew everything, he could easily give her whatever information she needed to condemn Malfoy—and he'd deigned to help her escape Shorecliff. So why didn't he cooperate with her now?<p>

He kept very close to her as she wandered around; his fingertips never left her leg. She thought at first he was just doing it to avoid bumping into people, or maybe to reassure her he was still there, but as they neared the Hogwarts Memorial he was practically riding on her instep. She tried to shake him off and cuss him under her breath as subtly as possible, but still ended up looking like a loose mental ward patient. Some school-aged boys pointed and laughed at her and an older couple asked if she needed help finding her way home.

"No, no, I'm fine," she assured them through a lockjaw smile, hurrying off in the opposite direction towards a clearer patch of park. Hopefully nobody recognized her or took a picture or, god forbid, nobody from the café last night was anywhere near here. Any more bizarre behavior from her and she was liable to end up in some dodgy tabloid article speculating about her drug usage.

As she staggered along unevenly (one leg still weighed down by a belligerent elf) she came to the conclusion that, given the circumstance, her energies would best be spent convincing the little bastard to testify against Lucius in court rather than her continuing to try and find condemning evidence on her own. She was just cooking up some harebrained plot to persuade him when a small yellow ball went hurtling past her ear.

It hit the ground in the same moment the spell took effect. Hermione found her muscles move involuntarily, bringing her to an abrupt halt. She couldn't do anything, couldn't move, couldn't scream—only stand there like a marionette on loose strings and watch as Belgium went sprinting past her, chasing the ball down and snatching it up off the lawn.

The dog spared Hermione a single fleeting look, and it was amazing how much hate an animal could put behind an action; Hermione fully expected to be ripped to shreds right there on the lawn. But it seemed Belgium didn't care to waste any more time on her: as soon as she had the ball she went loping happily back past Hermione, back to something—someone—standing a short distance behind her. Someone she couldn't see, as she couldn't turn her head. It didn't strain her vast intellect to guess who that might be.

His footsteps were muffled by the grass and the cacophony of outdoor fun, but she still heard them, still recognized them; she stood spellbound, hyperventilating, trying to plead for help or scream for Fergus, but only air puffed out of her throat. In a second, she could see his shadow down by her shoes; two seconds more, and he was standing there in front of her, looking down at her in supreme contempt.

"Miss Granger," Lucius murmured.

Hermione couldn't answer. The spell on her was so powerful that she couldn't even cry; her eyes stung and welled up but the tears couldn't fall.

Lucius, like Narcissa, had toned down his appearance to brave the public eye. His distinctive hair had been tucked beneath a hat and he'd shucked his usual sweeping robes for slacks and a dark button-up shirt. He still had that air of importance, but it was reduced enough now that his identity wasn't obvious. To any onlookers—and there weren't many nearby—he would be nameless. This would look like a conversation, not a hostage situation.

Lucius was waiting for a response, as was his way; when she could offer none, and instead stared up at him in naked fear, a glint of certainty entered his eyes. His lips pressed into a hard line and his stare became flinty cold. Quick as a cat he tried to reach for her, to grab her forearm, but seemed unable to touch her; his fingers stopped a centimeter away. Still, her flesh seemed to burn where he drew near.

Lucius' eyes narrowed just a little more. "Fergus?" he growled.

Hermione felt Fergus' arms loosen around her leg. He hopped off her shoe, and his contact with her was reduced to a fingertip on the side of her knee; it struck Hermione then that _Fergus_ was the one freezing her up like this, as well as keeping Lucius from touching her. Her anger exploded so violently that for a second her vision went red. _Fergus had set her up! _He'd brought her here to be recaptured! She tried to shoot daggers at him with her eyes but wasn't sure if he saw; he was still almost completely invisible aside from a hair-thin outline that rippled as he moved. Lucius spotted the movement and honed in like a bird of prey; his expression hardened further.

"Your word, Lucius," came Fergus' voice. "And quickly, too."

Lucius' jaw tightened. He ignored Belgium as she nosed his hand, trying to get him to throw the ball again. "Fine."

"I need to hear you say it," Fergus insisted.

Lucius scoffed. _"Fine_. I will neither kill nor harm you nor the _woman_ until you've said your part. To be quite frank, all of this nonsense—this public meeting, demanding these assurances from me, all of the theatrics you played last night when you set this little meeting up… it's redundant: you know I'm too curious to kill you now. And you _know _I still need to have a chat with her." He shot Hermione a glacial look, and she quailed under his piercing eyes, now finally directed right at _her_. Hermione Granger. There wasn't a single iota of warmth in them, not one sliver of fondness, as there had been when he'd looked at her while she impersonated Narcissa. It made her feel about an inch tall.

"And when that curiosity is satisfied, and the need is fulfilled?" To his credit, Fergus did not sound nervous; actually he sounded amused.

Lucius let out a short laugh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have some nerve testing me this way, you little bastard. I ought to flay you alive."

"Vacant threats aside, Lucius, if I'm to allow you back into my presence, or anywhere near the girl, I do need to hear it. And please, make it snappy—you've already lingered out here too long for comfort. Anyone could spot you." There was a sharp warning in his voice.

Lucius scoffed again. "Good _god_, fine! I will give you one week. One week, and I won't harm a single hair on your heads, regardless of what happens today. And after… if things go sour, and I am not convinced they won't, it would be enough time for you to go into hiding." His face hardened again. "And if things _do_ go sour—say, if you have some other betrayal in store for me—rest assured that you will need all the time you can get to escape me. Fool me once, Fergus."

"I'll start by saying it's terribly insulting to suggest I've betrayed anyone, least of all you," Fergus sniffed. "You'll be eating your words soon enough once you hear what I have to say."

"We'll see." Lucius put a hand on Belgium's head. "Back to the manor?"

Hermione's heart leapt up into her throat; she tried again to fight Fergus' spell, but she might as well have been pushing against a stone wall.

"No," Fergus said sharply. "I meant for us to stay there for the time being. It is, at the moment, safer."

A ringing filled Hermione's ears; she redoubled her efforts to break free. Her eyes were again so full of tears she couldn't see. Oh Merlin, no. God, no. Fergus was going to bring Lucius into her _home_. The place where she _lived_. Even with some flimsy assurance that Lucius wouldn't kill her in the next week, she'd have no place to go to escape him afterwards; somehow she'd have to give these two psychopaths the slip and go to Harry. Confess everything and seek sanctuary with him or the Weasleys. It was her only chance.

Lucius looked skeptical. "How can it possibly be safer?"

"I spent all yesterday fortifying it. No one would suspect you were there, and even if they somehow found out, breaking in would be an impossibility."

"Hmm. Well, I cannot fault your thoroughness. Nor your vigilance." His eyes flicked briefly to Hermione. "I assume by her current state that Miss Granger did not know of, nor consent to, your ludicrous little scheme?"

"In my frail old age, I fear that I simply forgot to inform her."

Hermione had never wanted to scream so badly.

"Well, the matter is settled, then," Fergus went on. There was a hint of movement and then Lucius' sleeve fluttered as if caught in a small breeze. "I will apparate us back. Do you have Belgium?" Lucius gripped her collar, and at the same moment, Belgium shot Hermione a murderous glare. Bizarrely, Hermione recalled that her lease didn't permit dogs. She nearly panicked at the thought of being evicted until she reminded herself that there were bigger issues at hand here.

"Very good," said Fergus. "Let's go."

He turned, and they all vanished with him.

* * *

><p><strong><span>AN****: Not the most thrilling chapter, maybe, but the next one ought to make up for it ;) Don't worry, everything will be explained in due course!**

**I know I might be beating a dead horse but I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who's reviewed, I love reading your words and it really means so much! Please keep leaving your two cents, I'm sooo close to 100 reviews I can taste it! Don't make me beg!  
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